Women Are Heroes

Working without authorization and identified only by his initials, Parisian artist JR exhibits on streets all over the world. Pasting his enormous photographs of local people onto buildings in neglected neighbourhoods, he makes art with and for its subjects. The vast scale of the work is breath-taking and the aim is always social connection, through revealing, close-up, often humorous portraits of people usually identified only by their poverty. JR’s projects have taken him on long international trips, to Cambodia, Palestine, Israel, China... He has wrapped his images onto Rio’s oldest favela and moving freight trains in Kenya. 


“Women Are Heroes, Kibera 2008”

"When you go to Providência, which is one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio, there is no NGO, no institution. Drug trafficking is huge. So, there is no reason for people to go to a place like that and create an artistic project. We were able to do this project just because the community had its own interest in its success. Because we arrived without any sponsors or political objectives, people always received us with open arms. They are happy to see another approach, and not a journalistic one - an approach where they are actors. These questions are really essential. The local people are conscious of their image. Their interest is to change the image we have of the favelas, to bring attention to them for something other than the drug traffic. And me…I want to continue my project, raise questions about the place of women in society. With the project done, I leave the country and I hope a bridge has been created between these people and the media. It is the testimonials of these people, their stories and their words, that are much more compelling than anything I can say. Each place is an unexpected meeting that continues. Sometimes I see people again when I come back to follow up an action and continue a project." JR

 

“Morro da Providencia, Rio de Janeiro, 2009”

JR