JR

Carthagena, Spain

As an undercover photographer, JR transforms his pictures into posters and makes open space photo galleries out of our streets. An acute observer of our time, as comfortable in cozy neighborhoods as in urban ghettos, he questions pedestrians with the exhibitions he mounts on their everyday commutes.

Using a camera he found once in the subway, JR finds inspiration in informal encounters he makes following his travels and his intuitions.

From 2001, he has been pointing his camera to a number of communities (writers, breakdancer, fresstylers, ...), and worked with popular actors and musicians such as Vincent Cassel, IAM or the Gotan Project.

From 2004, he has been working on the 28 millimeters project, which first part - Portrait of a generation - led him up to the New York Times front page. The large size pictures of the Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois youth have been notably displayed on the walls of the European Center for Photography and the square of the Hotel de Ville, in Paris.

His pictures beginning to sell at Hotel Drouot of Paris, he keeps on planning unauthorized exhibitions of large size pictures such as in Rome or in Wuppertal (Germany). He is currently working on the second and third parts of the 28 millimeters project in Middle East and Brazil.

The 3rd stage of the 28 millimeters project - Women Are Heroes - has already led him to Africa in post-conflicting zones to shoot the women with who he wishes to share painful stories and to testify of their desire to live. Their portraits were already pasted in Sierra-leone and in Liberia. In 2008-2009, JR will develop this project in India and in Asia.