I discovered the street art of JR a few months ago while visiting Berlin. After seeing his large-scale paper pastings in Berlin, I became interested in his work and hoped that one day I might be able to participate in one of his art projects. So this weekend I was thrilled to find JR’s Inside Out Project in Amsterdam, right in my own neighborhood!
The Inside Out Project is a global participatory art project launched by JR when he won the TED Prize in 2011. Instead of taking photographs of people and pasting them in different location all over the world, as he normally would, JR invited the public to share their portraits as a way of standing up for something they cared about.
Since then, more than 130,000 people in over 108 countries have taken their own portraits, sent them to JR via the Inside Out website, and received large format posters to paste in their own communities. Most of them are groups that have used the Inside Out Project to make statements on everything from LBGT rights and violence, to dreams and memories. The Inside Out Project has also sent traveling photobooth trucks all over the world, most notably this year at Times Square in New York.
This weekend, the Inside Out Project came to the Unseen Photo Fair at the Westergasfabriek in my neighborhood park.
So cool! How could I not participate?! So on Saturday afternoon, Marlon, Tala and I queued up at the Inside Out photo truck to have our portraits taken.
As you can imagine, public interest in the project was extremely high, making the queue very long and the actual photo-taking time very short. Five seconds to “make a strong face” (as per instructions from JR’s team) and that was it. No retakes!
Our posters came out of the photo booth truck (which is also a poster printer, how awesome is that?) in almost no time at all.
I’m a champion maker of faces (Marlon calls me rubberface), but I was wrestling with Tala a bit so I didn’t get to pull a particularly memorable face here. I think I was just gearing up to do something when the shutter actually clicked. But I can recognize Tala in this picture. She does this unimpressed face a lot.
Marlon said he wanted to channel a cheesy ’80s Pinoy matinee idol vibe. I think he looks very Indian here!
And of course we had to get one of Tala.
The posters were then ours to do with as we wished. We were given the option of taking them home and choosing a place to paste them, or make them part of the exhibit with the help of the Inside Out Project volunteers.
We chose to take our portraits home. Tala’s is on her bedroom wall, where she looks like a baby rock star with a huge poster of herself. As for mine and Marlon’s, I like the idea of keeping them until it’s time to leave Amsterdam, then pasting them in one of our favorite places as a mark of our time here, to leave a part of ourselves in this city after we move on.
After all, isn’t saying “we were here” what street art is all about?
P.S. I know, I promised lots of Greek gorgeousness… the Greece posts are still coming, don’t worry! This was just too good a weekend activity not to share.
This is so cool. I hope JR’s project makes its way to Singapore soon.
Soon we can divide the world’s population in two groups, those who did get their JR photo taken, and those who didn’t. Loved queuing in Paris and seeing all the surprised or embarrassed faces of people picking up their poster. What a good idea to leave the poster after you’ll leave Amsterdam!
Haha good point Judith! He is out for world domination
Well I guess I’m part of the group that didn’t have their picture taken.
I’m so bummed I missed this, but there was no way, I could have made it there!
Super cool posters!!
Awww! Who knows, another time, another city… maybe somewhere warmer even!
OMG Deeps! I super super love this post! And that picture of Tala on her own poster.. how artistic is that??? I agree about Marlon’s looking Indian haha. I think your’s is the classic “mommy look” haha!
Mommy look?!? Waah nanay na nanay na ba ako? Haha!
sooo cool!
I agree Marlon looks so Indian in his photo. Mala-Bollywood poster ang peg hahaha! And how cute is Tala’s poster! Please post a photo of it inside her room
I will soon… just need to clean her room first, haha!
Too coo! Love the background tying them all together.
Tala is so cute! And yes, your husband looks Indian in the picture. Itabi nga sa picture ni Shahrukh Khan, para icompare.
Sana pati abs maikukumpara diba? Hehe!