JR’s TED Talk

A few days ago we spoke about Inside Out, JR’s global art project. Now you can watch JR receiving his TED award and talking about how art could change the world.



“…[face2face] proved that the impossible was possible, and even easy” – JR

Inside Out – Global Art Project

Do you guys remember JR, the guy who won the TED award a few months back? He’s recently launched Inside Out, a global collaborative art project that looks awesome. Straight from the horse’s mouth:

INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. These exhibitions will be documented, archived and viewable virtually.

INSIDE OUT is a collaboration between the artist JR, the TED Prize and you.

So if you’re keen on getting involved, get in touch via their website, or get in touch with us! Maybe there’s some great potential for Cape Town here?

Here are some of the pieces that got JR that award: (Click on the image for the source)

RSA Animate’s take on Sir Ken Robinson’s talk about Education on TED

If you haven’t seen RSA Animate’s amazing work, check out our earlier post that dealt with “21st Century Enlightenment” before watching this one.

So why is this video here? Well, education is one of the basic features of modern life, but it’s also very obscured from what it should be. In his TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson looks at the way our education system is currently structured, and how it’s killing our ability to be creative.

RSA Animate has in turn taken this talk and created an amazingly animated video. Check it out below:

Street Artists wins TEDPrize

Street art has always been a frowned-upon medium by artists and authorities alike. Over the last few years though, that prejudice has been fading away with street-artists becoming a more accepted medium of expression, I think mostly thanks to the Banksy‘s of the world who are using this as a means to draw attention to social ills.

The Parisian street-artist, JR, who considers himself “neither a street artist, nor a photographer” has used both mediums to create some pretty amazing work. He’s known affectionately as “The man who gave slums a face”, and over the past few years have taken his art to the streets, which he qualifies as the “largest art gallery in the world“.

Now he’s been acknowledged by some of the most influential philanthropists in the world, by winning the 2011 TEDPrize. The prize consists prize money of $100,000 but more importantly also allows the winner One Wish to Change The World with the support of the TED community. Read the story on the NYTimes website.

It’s thanks to these persistent artists and social activists that good things are happening in our world, inspiring people globally to take a stand against social ills.

Here’s some of JR’s work:

You can also watch the trailer for “Women are Heroes“, part of his latest “28 millimeter” project.