Photocanvases JR

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

You will not find photographs of a talented young photographer named JR in galleries or exhibitions, his work adorns the battered walls of old ruined houses in the poorest neighborhoods in many countries: from Rio de Janeiro, Kenya to Palestine.

The 25-year-old Parisian photographer JR never gives his full name because "it won't change anything." As a teenager, he was fond of graffiti, and began filming at the age of 17 when he found a camera in the Paris subway. Now the photographer is engaged in posting huge black-and-white canvas photographs in the most impoverished city blocks.

JR recently returned from Kenya, where he and his team of 10 volunteers have transformed Kibera, one of the largest slums in Kenya, into a huge exhibition field. Last year, JR traveled to Kibera to take pictures of its residents. He returned to paste over their portraits of the train cars and the roofs of their houses.

Using waterproof vinyl material, his art has a practical purpose. “The more you visit places like Kibera, the more you realize that people don't understand you,” says the photographer. “Food is their first need. They don't need art for the love of art. It has to make sense. We have a specific goal in making their roofs waterproof. It makes sense. And they like it."

Even in such a shabby place, the exhibition of his work looks great. Looking down on the image of eyes, noses, mouths, you get the effect of a physiognomic carnival. Everyone who is captured in the photo is ordinary people, each of whom has its own story.

JR brings art to the poorest masses of our vast planet. Its goal is to show that art and creativity can work anywhere. He is an artist who makes people think. What he does is unlikely to change the world, but it can change the way a few people view the world.