On Wednesday 12 March the Fishmarket Footbridge – the bridge connecting the Ribji trg square and the Hribar embankment – will be provided with very special appearance. As part of the TED Prize Wish awarded project “INSIDE OUT”, students of international relations from the Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV) will share their optimistic message with
On Wednesday 12 March the Fishmarket Footbridge – the bridge connecting the Ribji trg square and the Hribar embankment – will be provided with very special appearance. As part of the TED Prize Wish awarded project “INSIDE OUT”, students of international relations from the Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV) will share their optimistic message with the world.
The project was brought to Slovenia by Vida Mulec and Vanja Černivec, huge admirers of the project and former students of international relations, in cooperation with Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture and the Municipality of Ljubljana. Wanting to emphasise young people’s attitude to the current economic, legal and moral situation in Slovenia, they invited fourth year students of international relations at FDV to participate in the project.
“INSIDE OUT” is a broadly based project, transforming personal identity messages into works of art realised as black and white portrait photographs printed in large formats, i.e. 150 x 100 cm or 300 x 150 cm. The concept is to provide everybody and anybody with the opportunity to share their identities with the world. Originating in a New York studio, the faces of participants are printed in large formats and sent worldwide to be used in local street-art creations carrying diverse messages, such as the fight against racism, intolerance and religious hatred, advocating the rights of same-sex couples and true love to one another.
In 2013, the documentary “INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project” was filmed in cooperation with HBO. So far, more than 130.000 faces from over 108 countries have been photographed.
Fourth year students of international relations at FDV have formulated their message to the world…
“Through our portraits we want to show that fatalism is not the only choice, that active involvement filled with positive attitude and a sense of togetherness can make a great difference. One active, positive person can change his/her own future, many can change the future of a whole generation. And this is our long term goal. In the meantime we also wish that our happy and positive faces would cheer up the passers-by and fill them with positive energy, so that they can overcome the obstacles of their day with greater ease and thus make their own small contribution to our cause.”
JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world and exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.
He has been introduced by Fabrice Bousteau as: “the one we already call the Cartier-Bresson of the 21st century”. On 20 October 2010, JR won the TED Prize for 2011. “The TED Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, ‘One Wish to Change the World.’ He created Inside Out, an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture and paste it to support an idea, a project, an action and share their experience.
As he remains anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter.
This is what JR’s work is about. Raising questions…
More on the INSIDE OUT project:
www.insideoutproject.net
www.facebook.com/InsideOutProject
