JR: Kibera as art installation
Posted: February 6th, 2009 | Author: kamau | Filed under: photography, politics | 4 Comments »
Screen shot from JR’s site
Guerilla photographer JR is known for creating, ahh, guerilla art installations from images that he has taken of otherwise invisible (read: poor) people around the world. He recently completed a series of photos of women in Kibera and created an installation on the roofs, hillsides, and passing trains there. Quoth a blog entry from The Wooster Collective on the installation:
… after more than a year of planning, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops.
kofia tip: Jamhuri Wear Gazette
hmm… what do you think?
apart from the immense vision and planning it took to pull this installation, i really respect what JR is trying to do. i think he is trying to link the art gallery world with the photo subjects who may never set foot in a chi-chi gallery in paris, london or new york. i think he is also forcing people to face the humanity of poor/colored people.
he got my attention after the riots in france in an environment where african and arab youth were portrayed as violent nihilists that Sarkozy wanted to exterminate. he took pictures of those youths making goofy as opposed to angry or stoic faces with a 28mm lens all up close completely distorting their features. he then pasted up (illegally) huge blown up images of his subjects in middle class/well off parts of paris again forcing people to confront what they think about black/arab kids. he has done the same thing in the favelas of rio and now in kibera. basically taking the gallery to the wananchi.
yeah the pictures don’t portray the noble struggle of the poor, and i suspect the residents of kibera don’t tarry too long over the images given their more pressing day to day concerns, but i really respect where JR is coming from.
[...] Kamau’s blog also has a great story about an art installation done in Kibera. Kamau’s blog is a must read. [...]
Congratulations with the marvellous work done in kibera! Fabulous, touching and respectful to the people of kibera.
Indra (from brussels)