 Welcome to the Brooklyn Museum. I am Sharon Matt Atkins, Director of Exhibitions and Strategic Initiatives. And I'm Drew Sawyer, the Philip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator of Photography. We are the co-curators for JR Chronicles, which we are thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to be opening to the public tomorrow. Hopefully some of you have already had a sneak peek, but if not, with your ticket you can see the show after the talk. And we're so pleased to have JR here tonight in conversation with Baratunde Thurston, who is now a returning guest to the museum. So thank you both for being here tonight. So first, a bit about JR and the exhibition. This is the first major exhibition of works by JR in the U.S., as well as the largest, his largest solo museum exhibition of his work to date. It features some of his most iconic projects from the past 15 years and premieres the Chronicles of New York City, a monumental mural of more than 1,000 New Yorkers that's accompanied by audio recordings of each person's story. JR defies easy categorization. Working at the intersections of photography, social engagement, and street art, he often collaborates with communities by taking individual portraits, reproducing them at a monumental scale, and we pasting them in nearby public places. His projects have brought together diverse groups of participants in cities across the globe to share their stories and to inspire discussions around critical social issues from immigration to women's rights to gun control. All of the projects that are on view here honor the voices of everyday people and demonstrate JR's ongoing commitment to community, collaboration, and civic discourse. JR is a Ted Price winner, an Oscar nominee, and one of Time's 100 most influential people of 2018, all of which made it feel like the right time to organize a major show of his work and also because so much of what he does connects to the Brooklyn Museum's focus on showcasing art that is addressing the most pressing issues of our time. Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated host who has worked for The Onion, produced for The Daily Show, and advised the Obama White House. He's the host of I Heart Media's podcast SPIT, wrote The New York Times bestseller How to Be Black, and serves on the boards of Build and the Brooklyn Public Library. Like JR, he promotes action with his unique blend of criticism, humor, and optimism. So before we leave this stage, we want to thank our generous supporters of the exhibition. Thank you to Clara Wussai and the Ford Foundation, as well as the Brooklyn Museum's Contemporary Art Committee, the Fund, Stephanie and Tim and Gracia, and Paraton. Additional support is provided by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Emily Glasser and William Sussman, the Hayden Family Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Pace Gallery, and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Thank you to all of them. And with that... Yeah, please join us in welcoming JR and Baratunde. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. Check, check. Where's Brooklyn at? And the other boroughs? Thank you for double checking because you know with the dark glasses, I thought there was only just the people in the front row. Oh, we got... Where's my mezzanine at? Oh, even up there. Yes! I love the energy. I love it. Oh, it's the greatest city, New York. It's inspiring and uplifting and depressing and smelly and beautiful and urine-infused. It's an amazing place. Can we just get a round of applause for this man right here for this biggest exhibition of his life? Biggest exhibition of his life! Maybe there was nothing to show before. That's why, you know? That's why they couldn't do it sooner. Yeah, well, they waited just the right amount of time, I think. And so I want to start with a 10-year-old JR. And at 10 years old, what did you want to do? Hmm, that's a good... At the time, I don't think I really had a plan. And I don't think I have a plan today. But I remember at 10 years old, I wanted to... I had a lot of freedom, so that's the good thing of... Where were you? Paying a picture for us. Where did you live? So, outside Paris in the project, so, you know, about 15 buildings looking at each other. In the neighborhood, that's not too crazy. I have all their story, but I could play outside all the time. And so I was outside all the time, basically. And at that time, I just realized, well, you know, if I'm allowed to go anywhere, I can take the subway to see Paris. I can... I was curious. At 12, I found a job to work, because I had an addiction to candy. That's really what got me started. Okay, so you were a child. Which goes till today. And so, one day, the candy store that opened in my street, that I would go every day, too. Because it was an addiction when, on days like that, when it was rainy, and if I was home, and it was warm, and I would want a candy, I would go out, take my bike, and go there. That was like an addicted, you know, first symptom. And so, the guy told me, hey, I'm gonna start doing markets, street markets, so I have to unload every Saturday on this place, and it's at 5 a.m. I'll give you candy if you help me unload, when I can... And I would be like, sure, I'll be there at 5 a.m. So I would go there, and I would, you know, open all the boxes of candies, and I'd get his stuff ready so fast, that by, you know, 5 30 would be already. So the other people would say, hey, help me unload the truck, I'll give you a bit of money. And I started walking there, and having a few people, I would unload trucks for. And so I could go to school on Saturday morning, if there was school, and come back after school to reload the trucks. And so that job I kept for six years straight, until I was 18. And I think that gave me kind of, you know, gave me a lot of autonomy, because I would make my own money, but also, you know, it would just keep me busy, but I had nothing to do with what I was exploring at the same time, which was, you know, graffiti. What did you learn from these businesses you were working for? Or about your community in terms of running it out of all these shops? Obviously you were doing it all for candies, you were a junkie, but besides, you know, your health challenge with candy, what did you learn about your community or about these businesses? Well, you know, what I liked doing there, it was the fact that I was unloading in moments before the markets opened. So it's almost if you're backstage. And in places like that, in the morning, you have all kinds of people that unload, people who come from all parts of life, people who are honest and people who are dishonest. I was really young and not really the strength to kind of unload those trucks, but I was really dedicated and so the people were nice to me and were like, well, do this one after, and I would have my day run. But some kids, you know, who would try to, you know, be mad, like, be un-nice with me, I realized... I like that, be un-nice with me. That's what I'm going to use when somebody's being a dick. You're being un-nice right now. Our president is very un-nice. It's the most generous way to talk about somebody. And I, you know, I would see that cheat show before it started and that way I had to really... I didn't have my friends from my neighborhood, I was by myself in this whole other world and yet it was just 15 minutes from my house. So it was, I've learned a lot from that. I was lucky that I had a pitbull at 14 years old. So I would take the dog all the time to that when I was unloading and from that day I never had a problem anymore. So that was... And the dog was so nice, he would not bite anyone. You know, so it was actually the best thing that happened to me. But also right after when it opened, sometime when I didn't have school, they would let me sell, you know, and the guy that I was unloading the cheese, well, I would learn a bit about the cheese. The people I would unload the clothes, it was a guy who was like, you don't care about the size, okay? When someone comes to you, you tell them it's their size. I was like, how do I do that? It's like, it's very simple. It's like, and I'm talking about ground motor's pullover. So like really, literally stuff that are really hard to sell, that were really expensive. My ground motor had one for years. They were really good, by the way. But what you do is you hold the pullover on the person and even if it doesn't fit the shoulder, you pretend it does by touching the end of the shoulder. And you're like, oh yeah, that feels right because the people can try it. So, y'all didn't think you were gonna learn how to scam people in the first five minutes, did you? That's great. Thank you for taking us backstage to the place you learned backstage of these shops. In the center of this exhibition, oh, it's your slide controller, you have a big mural that you and your team put together of New York City. You've lived in this city for almost a decade. So that's enough time to get to know the character of a place. What else did you learn about New York through this project involving hundreds of people from all five boroughs? Tell me about that. Well, I don't think I'm gonna do breaking news about what I've learned to New York that no one here have realized. The fact that it's an amazing melting pot that people ask you where you're from, before how are you. The fact that it's all the adjectives that you use to introduce that talk. And it's also a city where you can go, sometimes I was away for a long time and come back and it's like you didn't miss anything. You're just back on the train. Yes, stuff had changed, but the train never stopped. I mean, sometimes the train does stop, though. Yeah, yeah. Like, it literally, it just stops for like 10 minutes. And maybe you lose a job, right? Very true. Well, you're very little man, so I'll try to, let me try to refrain. I'm gonna say it. Real-time fact checking up here. The one thing that I really enjoyed doing here and doing that mural is that I think we all have that fantasy that when we look in the street and we see people from all parts of life, you wanna tap on people's shoulder and be like, hey, who are you? Without having to do the whole, hello, where are you from? Like, just who are you? Like, we can't do that. That's not just nice. You can't do that to people. Let's say that the process of that walk allowed me and my team to do that, which means that we could literally point anyone in the street and say, let's grab that guy and find out who he is. And literally, 30 seconds later, if the person was also curious of the giant trucks we had and the whole team, it looks like a film set, I was like, yeah, what do you want from me? And as soon as we get him inside the truck, I could be, hey, man, I'm doing this project. This is, you know, the back... It sounds like you're describing, like, NYPD tactics, right? Like, we just grab that guy and ask him what he is. And then we put him in the truck. I'm like, that's illegal, son. And then I would show the process to the people, and then I would say, who are you? And people would say, well, what do you mean, who I am? I mean, what is this question? I was like, no, it's just to define you or to represent you in this world, I need to know how you want to be represented. So let me help you by you telling me who you are. Like, well, you know, I run the MTA, and I'm also a fighter, but I also run a little baseball team on the weekend, but I'm like, whoa, calm down. It's not a mural about your life. I need one thing, how you want to be represented. And you ask people, essentially, how they want to be represented. But I would want to hear all those before. And then they'll say, well, you know, I'm actually in my uniform now, but I don't want to be in the train or in the mural. Like, can I just be walking with other people? Can I just be listening to someone? Or can I just be in a conversation because they would see what other people have chosen. So the people would literally choose where and how they wanted to be in the mural. And that's how every single person have been. So if someone said, well, I want to be interviewed, you know, by Baratunde, and you had come a few days before and did I want to interview someone, but I don't know who. Well, that's possible because I would photograph you exactly like that in your very stylish pose and like, you know, with your shirt and your mic listening. And then I would find my guy like me, with his five coats and his mic, who would be talking to you. And then this would make sense. Like, we really talked. So can you rewind now for us? Because that gets us where we are and that's in the center of the piece which we'll all see later if you haven't. Take us back to the suburbs of Paris, which are very different from suburbs in most U.S. cities. Take us to, I believe the region, it's Clichy Mont-Fermet. And you have your first mural project. First of all, do you have it in your slideshow? Yeah, we can find it. Let's try to dig around for that. And the reason I'm asking is because you used these words and you said, I asked people how they wanted to be represented, which is so different from the way many people feel used by media, where someone is putting them in a story that they didn't choose and you're letting people choose their own story and it seems like it started way back here. Well, right before that image where I was 19 years old, I actually was just pasting small photos in the street. You'll see that. My first photo since I was 16, 17, 18, I'm mainly graffiti. I was typing my name and then I started photographing other people doing that and that's one little segment of those early photos. That photo, I have to say, really, it kind of happened to me. At that time, I was not planning. If you look well at that photo, actually, the proof is you can see on the back a repetition of the same image based on the wall. I was just pasting on the building the same image over and over. My friend that you see here was filming me because he always had a camera in hand and was filming me that day, like any other day, we would always do stuff together. At some point, some kid just can't say, hey, why don't you take a scene photo? I haven't even used my camera that day and I was like, oh, yeah, and my friend, I say, whoa, wait, take a photo of me and as soon as he does that, all the kids come next to me, I shoot it, but then he's like, yo, get the fuck out. And I'm like, whoa, wait, no, stay, leave the kids there. But I couldn't look at the photo because it was filmed. I'm like, well, I think, well, let's try to do it again. Guys, do exactly what you were doing and then I try to stage this image and when you look at the film, it's all really bad. And so that day, that's it. We don't do much more. I go at the time on the Champs Elysees, you could print photos in one hour and I just did the negatives to a quick place for a couple dollars. I mean, Euro or even Frank at the time, if you want to be, you know, I'm very careful with that guy, guys, you know. Because I'm on it. Because I'm on it. It's going to be very precise. And I call my friend and I say, yo, I think there's a photo. That's like crazy. Like, I'm making a photocopy of it now and I'm coming back. And as we were passing the photocopy of the photo, everyone comes and say, whoa, what's that? What's that? Oh, large have a gun? And we're like, no, man, it's his camera. And another guy said, whoa, where was that? It was just here. And we realized that all the people who grew up there knew us and knew him will keep getting confused by the photo where we just shot it there. So it was really weird. So we were like, oh, let's do more photos. So the next day we call all our friends and we start hanging in the neighborhood, having guys jumping out of the building and taking photos. It was for one day we just had fun. Then we printed the photos bigger because we looked where, where can we do an exhibition where we don't have to ask anybody. And we just look at the buildings where it says fuck the police everywhere and we're like, let's just paste over those buildings. So we actually, you know, printed it in strips and you can see here on that photo, pasting the last strip. Well, this is taken maybe at 5 or 6 a.m. in the morning because I didn't know how to do it, to be honest. And I was doing it with the pole here to clean the pool. So I put kind of a thing and a ladder and it wouldn't even go to the top and then on the second strip here it was the wrong one. So one night we started and then I always get like 100 guys behind me so the police couldn't interfere. So instead of hanging in the buildings I say, come and hang down the ladder just for one night. And then I remember when we pasted the second strip someone say, yo, it doesn't match. And I was so close to him, he's like, what do you mean? Yo, someone fuck this up, we're gonna fuck that guy. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what's up? And I was like, what's going on? Just tell me, I can't let the strip go. And so I went down and it really didn't match. And so they say, who's the fucking printer? I'm like, no, no, don't worry. I mean, so we had to stop and then the next day like we print and do all this and then do a few other buildings. And it's true, the police would come but they would see all those people and would just be like, I'll let them be, you know. What happened is that the mayor sued me for this for pasting all the buildings. And he sued JR, which is pretty hard. If you go to the police station it's like I want to sue this guy called JR. It's like we need a real name, you know. So never use your government name. Lesson two. So basically I didn't get arrested and at the time I didn't have had a glass so when the police would come in they didn't know who was the JR. So they did bother my friend Latch because they knew where he was living and he was like, well, I don't know what he's got. He took my photo. What happened there is that the city tried to clean it but the people there say if you touch this, we'll start a riot. So they never touched it but I was kind of afraid at that time to pay for all the buildings I pasted on and I left at that time for a while. The thing is when I came back a year later you left Paris, you left France. Yeah, I left France. And because it was really the early beginning of Street Out. It was really like the first time people put the word on like... What year are we talking about? This was 2003, 2004. And so people were like, there was a small publisher who said, hey man, you see that movement happening online and you're doing your little thing. Why don't you email those people, you know better than me about this and ask them photos and you make a book and I'll pay you for that. I was like, well, can you give me the money and I'll go and photograph them myself. And that had actually allowed me to couch surf on, you know, on couches of people that were doing art and also of traveling for very cheap because it was the beginning also of like low cost travel. So I was really lucky to be born in that generation and also we'd see digital arriving. So it was also not a rich part to do photography anymore. When I came back to France a year later, riots exploded in front of that photo. The 2005 riots, I don't know if anyone's remember, were the largest riots we had in France since the French Revolution. That's when in CNN here, Fox News, you thought that Paris was burning and France was burning. Well, it started in front of that photo and then spread out to all neighborhoods because two kids were being chased by the police and they were in front of that photo and here was an electrical company building. They hide inside but they got electrified and died. So the first car that burned was here and on the background you'd see this photo but kind of crumpled because one year had passed on it and suddenly it was all over the news. I was even on cover of New York Times paper as the background of the riots when I was like 20. So that moment is the moment where the neighborhood got on complete lockdown. No journalists could enter anymore and because this was the epicenter, this was the most violent one and where it started and so a lot of journalists couldn't get photos anymore and I remember a big press agency contacting me. Couldn't get photos or wouldn't get photos? No, they couldn't because they couldn't enter the neighborhood and the only way they could was with long lens and I remember some of the kids coming to me with the long lens, they stole from the photographer because they say, well those guys think we're in a zoo. It's like telephoto. And so they were showing me that but at that time I had only that one camera that you'll see downstairs so I was like, I don't know what to do with this and plus I knew nothing about photography so I was like, what is this? And also it's broken so be careful next time. So I had an email through my website who was registered in Canada on a poem site so that I couldn't get tracked. So it was a bugging offer. Lesson three. Oh yeah, that's the first lesson. You can't link your website to your name so I had a guy who was a hacker and who linked it so I could get the email but the people could know where I was from. So I told the guy, the big press agency who wanted to speak to me and at that time it feels like important. I was like, meet me in the neighborhood and the guy said, well I can't enter. I was like, well we'll get you in. So this guy come in like his open shirt and like, you know, walk in. And so we talk and he looks at me and my friend and I say, okay, I have a job for you. Have you ever walked for the press? I'm like, no, I've never walked for nothing. So he's like, okay, you can take photos of your friends burning cars and stuff and we'll pay you for that. Oh no, well I have my photos already and I showed him my walk and he's like, oh no, no, it's great kid but I'm not interested in those photos. I want the photos of them burning cars but those are just a few kids who are burning everything. Most of them just go to walk every day and stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not the question. So then it's like, we'll pay you a lot of money for that and so I remember talking with my friend and at the time we were like, well this sounds weird, right? We're gonna take photos of what's going on every night here. I don't even know how to shoot at night anyway. So we went back to him and we said, no man, we're not interested. He was like, all right, well and we said, but if you want our first deal on, there was a photo, there was a few photos from that the year before you can and you can pay us for that. He looked at us like, yeah, right. He left and then I was like, well, what should I do? Yeah. And that's where I started taking portraits because I realized the only lens I had was a 28mm which forced me to be really close from the subject which means that you know that I'm taking your photo. The complete opposite. That's why the project was called 28mm. Can you pull up an example of that? Let's see if there is one. Oh, that's another photo actually from that, you know, that series. Okay. So those photos were then pasted in Paris and they were portraits of the youth from the neighborhood playing their own caricature because at the time, every day you open the media, people in hoodies, you know, hiding their face, burning stuff so people were like, oh, maybe he's one of them, maybe he's one of them. Who's who? Like everybody was terrified about any youth because they could have a hoodie and they could be burning things. So I was like, well, if you have nothing to approach yourself, I'm going to paste your actual face in Paris with your name, your age and your building number on it. So you go from someone in the media, you can recognize to someone you can go and knock at his door and I use that 28mm lens and paste them in Paris and I would also wait for the city to clean it because it was all illegal to go and grab photos. And then years later, when they destroyed the neighborhood after the riots, I pasted them inside the buildings and so at every floor, because we know how the building was made and so the more they would eat the building, the more they would find those portraits. Clap if you didn't know most of that. Alright, we're doing our job. We're doing our job. I like real-time feedback. I don't want to waste New Yorkers' time. Your journey, I'm glad you took us back to where the portrait started in this particular community and it started with trying to represent people who felt misrepresented or disrepresented, disrespected in the way that they showed up. But then you left your home country and you started working beyond it and can you just take us to another place of meaning for you where you found stories of people wanting to see themselves and it either was totally something you didn't expect or it felt just like home even though it was the farthest thing from home. As traveling that year or after? After. Yeah, because every travel and you'll see that in the show, you have to imagine it was kind of my first travel. So I was really naive and also discovering the world and so excited so I would go in some place and I knew nothing about it so I'd be like, yo, what's up here? Israel-Palestine, what's going on? Who is who? And I would really be like, you know, yo, tell me. And I'd be like, are you serious? No, I know a bit, but like, what is, well, those guys, they think we're fucking animals. These guys, and then I would go on the other side because with French passport or US passport, you can do that. You're talking about a project with Israelis and Palestinian people and you did essentially a joint photo project with these two communities. Yeah. Though they didn't necessarily know how it was going to show up. Exactly. But basically what I realized, I would consider this one my real first travel outside Europe in another context. So you went straight to the heart of the most high conflict zones in the world. Yeah. Because of a friend who might be in the room called Marko and he was like, well, they're building a wall there. You should go. And I was like, well, you speak Arabic, you come with me. And then we went there. The thing is, I think what really saved me there was being really naive and the people being like, wait, wait, what are you trying to do? And I said, well, you're a hairdresser, so I want to photograph your hairdresser here in Israel and then I'm going to find a hairdresser there in Palestine and I'm going to paste you together. And the guy was like, yeah, right. I was like, why? Well, I let you take my photo, but no one on the other side will let you take their photo and paste them next to an Israeli guy. You'll see, you don't know. And I was like, yeah, maybe you're right. Yeah, you might be right. But look, I'm here. Can I take your photo? He's like, oh, you can take my photo. I'll sign even your waiver. But what are you going to do with it? I'm like, well, it's not really important the photo. I'm going to paste it. And the guy's like, yeah, you want to paste it. What do you mean? And he's like, what? Like, you know, this table? No, like this screen. And he was like, oh, wow, OK, well, let's see if you do that. And they would be like, all right, I give you my photo. Let's see if you do that. Then we would go on the other side and then find a hairdresser. And we really, it was kind of a weird scouting. Like you walk the street and you kind of look into the window and you're like, this guy sounds good. Like he have the moustache. And then the guy would like be cutting hair and looks like, what is this guy? He's like, looking at me. And then we were like, oh, yeah, that's a guy. So we would go in and then the guy would be like, OK, I help you and stuff. I'm like, oh, I don't speak. He's like, sit here, sit here. I'm busy. Oh, I sit here. And then he would be like, what do you want? Where do you from? You look like a tourist. Yeah, I am actually. Oh, you're from France. Oh, great. And I was like, so why are you here with this camera and this bag? No, I'm doing this art project and oh, it's fun. Do you know? And then they always say Zidane and like, yeah, I know Zidane, whatever. But personally, yeah. And I said, can I take your portraits? And he's like, my portraits, why four? I'm like, well, I'm doing this project where you play your own caricature of how the other sees you. Oh, those guys there, well, they think we're all monsters. They think we're all suicide bombers. And so I was like, yeah, no, I know, I know. But he's like, I'm a hairdresser. That's what I do every day. I'm trying to make a living and help my family. I know I want to take a portrait of you. And then I met another hairdresser who's exactly doing the same thing on the other side and just trying to fit his family. And the idea is to paste them next to each other. He's like, oh, do you think those guys would let you paste me next to them? You really think so? You're really nice. And I was like, I know, I mean, I have to try. So would you take my photo? Who cares? Like, let me finish the haircut, but take my photo. So we take the photo, make him sign the waiver, and then go on with like teachers, students, like you name it, you know, like, okay. And so, you know, there was security guards, people who walk at gas stations, activists, the three religions, each of them accepted. And then we went back to France and we're like, okay, we have those photos. We cannot ask the permission from any side because if we got the permission of the Israeli government, then we look like we're taking a side. If we have the rotation from the other side, which is not, you know, the same organization or government from who would have the authorization. And also, if we get sponsored by Coca-Cola or Make a Cola, then we take sides. So anything we do would make us take sides. So we have to just go by ourselves, rent a car, and just paste the thing. So we printed everything. And the glue that I use is white powder. And you can't find it everywhere. So we poured it in a gym bag, a whole bag of glue. And because it took less space, when you take it off from the box, I really went to the airport with a bag full of white powder. By the way, it made it easy to security. And we filmed even the arrivals. So if anyone's trying to sneak a drug, that's the easiest way. Hey, hey, hey, hey. I don't know. I'm just saying. I don't do this stuff. I just want to say this is satire. And point out that any representation is a criminal activity that you interpret are not what's intended from this stage. So anyway, we get there with the glue, with the poster. We rent a van. And of course, there's like tons of stickers on it. We take them off. And we're so naive that we start from Hebron, which is technically on the Palestinian side on the West Bank. But it's an Israeli town. I mean, it's very complicated. You're like, what is this? Who is that? It was very complicated. But we got there and we started pasting. And we started encountering problem that exact day because it was Jewish holidays called Purim, where people make funny faces. And we were pasting those faces there. So the first Imam that stopped took it really badly. And then it started to be a very deep conversation. You'll see some of those images in the show. Actually, there's videos you can see of how people reacted. But he saw that we were just a bunch of innuend basically. And he realized, oh my God, you guys, really seriously? Wow, that's great. Keep doing it. And then we go on to the next. And to the next. And each time people say, well, we let you paste here. But they will never let you do that the other side. And again, remember, we would be in Ramallah in the West Bank. And we would paste like a giant face of an Israeli and then a giant face of a Palestinian doing the same job. Yet people will stop in the street, look at us. And of course, first question always, you know, people never seen this kind of art. They're like, oh, what is this? You know, it's some pasting photos with glue. Okay. And then they're like, here, but who are those people? Oh, those are two taxi drivers. Oh, that's good. And you took those photos. Yeah, I took those photos. And another guy come, what are they doing? Yeah, he's taking photos of taxi drivers, pasting them. Oh, that's great. And then that guy shows up. Okay, great. You know, good. I mean, but who are those taxi drivers? And I was like, oh, yeah. One is Israeli, one is Palestinian. And then my friend Marco would always be there around and say, well, who is who? And he was like, you're asking me who is who? Of course I can recognize my own brother. That's the, that's the Palestinian. You got a wrong one here, but you get better one on the next one. Here's two students on the book. Who is who? And then basically, no one asked us to take down those portraits. No one would tear it down. They would stay. We could not believe it. Yes, there was real conversation. Yeah. And then we would go to the next CD and the next CD. And each time it started with a guy who said, because I would look at a wall and say that wall is great. But of course it's someone's wall. So we had to ask that person. And often it was like, well, what do you want my wall for? Well, we want to pass this. And what's the point of this? Well, who knows? It's an art project. We're trying to show that the similarity is whatever, if it can help, just do it. So we're like, okay, that's easy. Okay, we do it. The thing is we would stay there maybe 30 minutes an hour, pasty, then we would go. I met those people a year later. They told me that they had to talk about the project every single day because people would come to them and say, oh, Ahmed, what is this? Well, it's those friends. What do you mean those friends? What did they do? Well, and then every day they hated me for that. Like you force them, you recruited them into your whole team. And on the other side was the exact same thing. And I could not believe it. So to answer your question, my first travel was really to realize what it was to have that luck to be able to go on each side where people only see each other through the media and they see often the worst of the others through the media. There are so many examples in this exhibit of you entering communities and being given access in a way that most people wouldn't even dare to ask or they would be rejected outright. And it seems like part of the reason you can get in is because you're pretty good at playing ignorant, even when you made them. And that's not like a subtext like this. You say things like, I'm just an artist. I'm not from around like I'm French. I don't know. And so you can kind of play. It's all true, by the way. It's true. But I sense in a lot of your work that you're able to do the thing because you're not of the place. And yet you're trying to reflect the place. So how does such a consistent outsider get inside? Well, I think by the fact that they don't come saying, I know, you know, that really changed everything. So in most of those places when I would go, the fact that I don't know made people say, well, let me tell you. Let me tell you about what we leave it. Let me tell you about how it is to leave here. And often when I started going further than there, like in Liberia or in Sudan or in places where I was like, all right, this is a place I've only seen through the media as like through the war or like I went there right after the war in Liberia, for example. I'm like, I don't think, I don't know much about art because I haven't been to art school, but I don't think art is what they need. Yet I have a way to go there. I'm going to go and ask them if art would make sense. And I would go there where everyone say, well, those people might need out of stuff than art. Don't you think what is the point of going there to paste photos on wall? I was like, maybe you're right. I would just want to go fact check it. And when I would go there and literally ask that to the people and kind of present the idea, I don't want to take a photo and paste it, but I'm not sure it's right. I was like, well, you're not sure it's right. I don't know. I mean, you know, is there another emergency that needs to, like, who are you to say what's the emergency? And don't you think we need dignity like other people? And then they memorialize actually the power of the art and how dignity came first. And I've had an answer in a lot of different countries and I would go up all the way in the other side of the planet in the favelas and hear the exact same thing. I would go all the way up in other places. And in the show you'll see that, but at some point there'll be a big part of the show where I don't go to all those places. There's a part called Inside Art where you'll see an entire wall of screen. A round of applause. Who's familiar with the Inside Out project? That's most people. And I said, I'm not going to go anywhere. Whoever thinks this project should be in their neighborhood, send the photos. We'll print them for free and send them back. Well, I started seeing people all around the world pasting it in a very complicated zone that I wouldn't even have the balls to go to, but also in places that are pretty rich and wealthy and yet people feel they've been forgotten. I remember in a small village in Switzerland a group of elderly people who did an Inside Art outside their retirement house because they said no one's looking at us anymore. And at the same time there was people in Afghanistan trying to fight for their right pasting women in the street. So I think at some point of course that journey I realized that yes, being an outsider, but also sometimes not being there at all and letting the people do the work because I realized that when I was there, yes, the people would be more excited than me to install those giant work, but when I would come back, you would say, yeah, yeah, they were excited, but you did it. No, actually, it's kind of amazing. The people got that their ladder. Actually, when we were pasting these, they found out the ladder from the Church of Nativity where Jesus was born, brought us the ladder in wood and we pasted it with that. I was like, are you serious? Yeah, we went, it's okay, I know the priest, he's fine with it. And all those crazy stories would happen and we would go on the other side and some guy would say, oh, you don't know how to do it. Let me climb on it and I would climb on those crazy roofs that I wouldn't even go into. And that would be the same anywhere, even in Liberia where some rebels would start pasting on a broken bridge because the bridge was really broken in the water and it would slip away and they would see me fall constantly and they would laugh at me. And so I was like, ah, let us do it. And they ended up pasting women that have been raped during the conflict, probably by some of those guys that were there because this was a zone that was not protected by the UN anymore. So you go in those really weird products, those guys weren't applying to paste, they ended up pasting it. But by doing that, they were questioned like, first they wanted me to pay to paste there. And I was like, no, you don't understand, and I was like, I'm not paying. I was like, why are you not paying? I'm like, because this is not advertising, I'm not renting the space. And you know, I'm talking about rebels, like guys with machete and they're like, what? What are you talking about? So is your strategy to just annoy them into compliance? Yeah, it's a big strategy. Yeah, if you go over and over at some point, the head of the guy would just be like, that's the fucking guy. And also you look harmless. I'm just with a bucket of glue and a roll of paper. I'm like, I have nothing else. So they're really more curious. They're like, who pays you to do that? No, I came by myself. No, no, who pays you? So they're like, what is this guy? What's the point of this? And I tell them, I'm pasting this. If you don't like it, you can scratch it down in front of me. You guys are 20, we're just two. And at some point, I just paste it. You know, just whatever. We bought anyway. We bought your perspective and your point of view that you're imposing on these communities. So this work couldn't happen without the community. It also couldn't happen without a team. Yeah. And could you let this room in a bit more behind just what JR, the organization, is how many people, how do you all decide on a project and how many roles are there? And what do we not see? Take us backstage to the process. Yeah, well, it started on that project and he told me through that site that I had met at 12 o'clock at night, and he was studying at the School of the Louvre in Paris, and he was telling me, well, this work is part of the the era of like photography, mixing, you burn out. He had all this theory about it. I was like, wow, you sound intelligent. I've never even thought about it. So I said, well, you know, can you help me? And at that time, I didn't want to see how to structuralize this, but we had no structural order and no need for structure. Then that guy became my first right-hand and over the years, each time some people would come and give a hand, you know, like Mark who's in the room who's my right-hand, he in New York and now over all the studios, he just came and helped. Like he was just like after his work and he was working in banking and stuff. And so I often say we saved him from that world. He was helping. We take out his suit and then come and paste our cut strips and then he was moved to Brazil and when I would go there, I would always ask a place to not have to go to a hotel so I would sleep on his couch and then he would go to work, I would go to the favela and then one day he was like can I go with you there? I was like, sure, come and then, you know, at some point I said why don't you work part-time with me and take care of the school there that we were trying to build and then later on he quit everything and started working here. So we built a team out of people who first came with just the joy of like yeah let me, you know, be part of this I want an intern who's here he actually was doing Inside Out in France, his own Inside Out and like pasting photos organizing community and then one day he wrote us and said hey guys can I just, you know be there for a couple months with you in the studio and we were like yeah sure, come in. But we are a team of probably 20 people and you know it's for sure understaffed but we rather stay I know it can sound like a big size but first with the amount of project we do is small but we rather stay like that everyone, you know have a very intense part and every single person is very important like I literally can't do anything as one my man so it's really a group we function like that in everything and it kind of organized itself pretty well between Paris and New York and so each time someone is at one place the other team is prepping the next one so I can just move from places to places and also have my French team there now right now in New York and we had a project that just came up last week to go in a jail this Sunday so we were like oh guys you're not flying back let's stay, we're going this Sunday we kind of improvised one of my you know way of functioning is not having any meetings or you know time of appointment except team conferences except this one when it's linked to a show and so I know I'll have to be in New York but I can't say that next July 12 I can say yes to speak at wherever even the UN I would never say yes because maybe I could be walking somewhere else and I don't want to be cancelling so I have kind of a clear agenda where I can be you know walking on project that really moved me and from the week to the next and how do you money so now it's a good question so the people won't be surprised when I go with my heart in the audience after it's great that you mention it this is a fundraising night guys thank you all for being here block their cell phones except for Venmo because you've made a point repeatedly on this stage of saying like I'm not an advertiser we're not sponsored by a brand you've said before you don't work on commission I'm sure there's a bunch of billionaires who would love their own JR project and could probably underwrite your work for at least 10 years but you haven't done that and you also don't seem to align with governments or other formal centers of power so how do you money yeah no it's a good question I used to say like my dad owns Exxon you know or something like that I would make that joke that you know my family was big in the oil money but then people would really believe that so I stopped making that joke it's a really bad joke I financed since from the beginning is through selling my artworks so at the beginning I didn't have a gallery so I would go someone would say hey you know I really love what you do can I buy something I would sell them a photo and I would get a couple hundred bucks and reinvested in it so it was really easy and I really know the cost of what it is to make it so I knew I could do it with nothing and the more we scale on this project for example everyone paid their own flight for years then I could start hiring why because I did very little artworks over these years so 99% of what I do is not for sale it's just free to the public but 1% is documenting those artworks and I most of the time do addition of one at one size or like three at the same size and those are owned by collectors who actually by supporting the work by buying the work and by having it in a living room probably they don't know it but it pays for all the rest because as soon as we get the money we're like alright let's do this project in the jail let's do that project there so yes there's a few big people who owns my work and they protect it they make sure it goes in museum like this show here was also mainly made with artworks that are not mine anymore that are people who own them and say yes I would love this piece to go to the museum and sometime there is what I call shadow philanthropist which are people who not look to try to put their name on it but they don't have communication about it who's like hey I know you're trying to do something you know wherever in Paris and this and that I want to show some money and I don't want my name to appear anywhere I just believe in the purpose of it and those people are very rare but those people are having a tremendous impact because sometimes they do help me but they help a ton of other people and you don't hear about them as much as people who just shout their name out there they do an amazing work so I'm lucky on my part to have met a couple of those people like for example I live in New York I don't pay rent since nine years pause you have everyone's undivided attention this is the lesson they've been waiting for am I right look I'll tell you and you don't like sleep on the subway right you have like a proper no no we got AC at all okay so so the weird thing is when I won the Ted Price which is normally when you go on stage and there's tons of people in the room and everyone is pretty powerful or have a lot of money or did some incredible stuff you suppose when you win the price when the cameras are off to be like hey guys who can help me for my vision and people say well I'll help you kiddo what do you want and then you raise money but when it finished I was like guys so we have enough to start this project and you can't really participate I mean you can but it's the people's project so if you want to participate and do a project in Pakistan well get people there to take the photos send them and we'll send them back the people who would really participate are the people online who are watching this talk and who are going to be oh yeah I want to do this there's one thing yet I have to ask who have a place where I can put the printer so I can send the posters and a few people say well I'll give you 10,000m2 in Brooklyn and I say well I'll give you 5,000m2 in the Bronx and the Armory we'll give you a studio at the Armory and I went and visited all those places and it was amazing but someone in the city told me well I have a place also and you could maybe stay there for a year and it's almost like a condo building but I'm not using it and you know you could use it one year so I know it sounds crazy it's a true story when you say it out loud and I won't tell you where it is but you know it would and so we you know we went and visited that place and it was crazy that by weird coincidence I had pasted that building years before like when I was 18, 19 and I left that neighborhood to come to New York anyway and I told the guy well do you know I don't know the story of this building because you know we just got it so I was like well so what's the deal it's like no just you know if you need a place to put a printer you can and there's places to sleep in the building just one year that's it okay so we signed it and then night's been nine years we don't pay rent, electricity, water and we actually send posters around the world for free and that helped us reduce tremendously the cost but also that person so well look if that's really what is your goal if you stay on the values you're defending so I can't be the guy who say well I got to do this because I got to pay the rent I can't because I don't pay the rent so you know how often as an artist you're like well I'm here because I got paid so I want to thank you know LVMH and whatever I want to thank this brand Nike for supporting me I don't have to and I don't have to sit with people who are not in you know I don't have to sell shoes basically that's really important and I measure that chance that I have because it remind me every day that if I decided to be an artist even if I didn't know there was a job for being an artist and that there was even reason where you could talk about what you're doing and doing shows like this I had no idea when I started so I should protect that at any cost a moment may we all live in such a way that we can find a shadow philanthropist to underwrite nine years rent free in New York City I want to ask you about the risks of participatory media so many of your projects are open for seemingly from my perspective at least looking at Inside Out as one example I want to do this art project I want to put people's faces on the wall but whose faces and in what context and what is your team or your process for vetting the participants so you're not underwriting white supremacist or ISIS I'm going to try to pull an image of Inside Out this is not, this is not this is cool but not now maybe later nice lunch how are you I did want to ask you about that this is Inside Out so it's always that size portraits all over the world pasted by people it was interesting when we say okay how do we build that project and we always sit with all the team at the studio and we're like alright how do we do this if we're going to let people do their project for whatever reason and I remember I was talking with the people from TED and we're like well we should select who are the heroes of today and we should select some projects and then send them the posters and we're like well then it means that we decide who's good, who's not fighting for what's not so I think we should just leave it open you know and we should just put strict rules strict rules which is portraits you cannot be sponsored by a brand or an NGO or anything it has to be about your own ideas you defend the color blue great we'll send you the posters you want to fight for your right we'll send you the posters you don't like you know carpets we'll still send you the posters it is true but it's true that also maybe the extremist and some crazy parties and Nazi people would want to use that project and then we'll be printing for them and we're like well we got to take the risk so we took it and we started sending photos around the world and in tons of places and the truth is I don't think the Nazi people have heard about the project because they never send us the posters that's one thing and the second thing is that the main problem we had was people sending photos with their puppies you know that we had to be no you can't have your dog in the picture that's you know it's not a family photo so that's it the rest was people really wanted to like you know share their ideas or replace all the photos of Ben Ali the dictator in Tunisia by day on photos that was actually the first project in Tunisia people saw that TED talk it was a revolution in Tunisia we started receiving hundreds of posters from Tunisia like what is going on there oh yeah revolution and then we asked them what's your idea well now we just it's just the Tunisians okay we send you the posters and then they replace all Ben Ali's photos by their portraits and it was fascinating and you'll see on that screen you know there's tons of screen there's two episodes of that because it was filmed at that time they actually encountered a lot of problem I don't think we have the images there but they were pasting posters exactly like that on the street and each time they would paste and people would help them and stuff there would always be one person who comes and say what is this this is us I took the photo like the people who took it say I took it this woman took it we all a group of photographers we pasting it no no no no what is this are you deaf man it's us you guys are trying to do here you're trying to get the country and they're like are you kidding me no we're not trying to get the country no no no hey guys guys guys there's something wrong here and they would start tearing down the photo and trust me this on the film there was riots I've never seen a riot started just with one woman questioning like that and turning everyone you know upside down and then suddenly cars were flying and all this and they had to run away then they pasted it at night I advised them I said guys okay maybe avoid daytime do nighttime they would paste all night and then at 6am people would come very calmly and just tear it down and they were like crying like man what is wrong with you it's just us what are you hiding behind and then an old man came and said hey hey hey you have the right young girl to paste your photo he have the right to take it down this is called democracy and it's the first time in our country that we're enjoying it and he put the whole thing in perspective they never had the choice of what was on their wall there was one single photo of one guy for all those years suddenly you can say what's up or what's not there and it was amazing to see that but at the same time very moving because I've never seen anything like that and also it was not my project it was theirs speaking of not your project or mine we have microphones here we're going to open this up to some of you if you can get to that microphone or that microphone start lining up now while people are doing that or thinking about doing it I want to ask you in the age of there is people wow it seems like one of the things you've done and your team have done is to let people control their image and control their voice essentially their representation but now everyone in this room has their own cameras and their own microphones and their own ability to distribute their images and voices so how has that affected the nature of your work are you evolving in the face of people being able to do self portraits and you don't have to send you a thing to print there is that but that was without without phone possible the one way impact tremendously is I'll tell you a story in three minutes fast forward you're next you ready so if you take a project don't look close your eyes close your eyes everybody close your eyes close your eyes anyway it's not a project doesn't matter you see that wall I've heard about this wall on television and a guy I forgot his name talking about this wall every day sorry I'm French I don't know and no one said you should paste on the wall because guess what it's a seesaw wall so I can't paste on it so anyway I came there and realized that there was people living on the Mexican side close by the wall and I just went and knocked at doors and realized there was a family living there true story the woman followed me on Instagram I was like no I don't think so and you know I get in the house there's dogs everywhere and a little kid in this crib and the grandmother is there and like five chickens running and she's like yeah I follow you on Instagram I'm like I don't think so where would it be so I now you got a place in Mexico and New York so anyway I said well I can't really paste your house it's a bit too far even if it's the closest but thank you can I take a photo of your kid in the crib because he oversees the wall every day so she's like yeah sure you know I just take the photo the kid is like that in his crib looking at me and then I say well if I do anything I'll contact you write me your email and you know for now it's my first time here I'm just gonna follow the wall anyway fast forward in front of that house actually right down there you see behind it looks like it's nobodies and I've actually asked all the neighbors I say whose land is this I don't know everybody just shoulder went I don't know so because I couldn't have a clearance sir I just went builder's style so you just started bulldozing along the US Mexico border exactly cool cool totally normal which by the way another trick very easy anyone here can rent a builder's they'll deliver it to whatever address and it's a true story that's what they do and I just want to add that this is satire and if you interpret any of this as a license to crime that's on you well who say this was crime it's not they delivered whatever you want trust me on this okay alright so they delivered there and then we started digging because we had to level the ground I was like okay if someone stopped me fine we'll say we saw it we'll put the sand back where it was there was nothing there French I'm an artist weirdly we did that for 20 days no one said anything so then you go next step you say can you build a scaffolding there same thing it's rental guys you can build a scaffolding anywhere you want it's true let's do this try it on the Brooklyn museum tomorrow they'll show up at 5am no one from the staff will be there the guys will start putting down a scaffolding and then they'll come to work at 9 or 10 maybe it's a museum or 11 who knows and then they'll be like what is going on here well clearly here no one say what is going on so I kept on going until it was three times the size of the wall and then very easily in one day we actually pasted that little kid which I asked the motor first and so pasted the little kid when on the you know on the other side well you know that photo where he looks over and there's the two gouts another photo anyway took the photo from the other side and then what happened is I posted it and to answer your question I said to the people anyone can come here and take photos and that's one reflex we all have when we go some places or go see a monument is you go and you take your phone turn your back to the piece and you go take a selfie I'm okay with that and that's why I made sure you can even park your car there so on the other side there was a road and it was easy on either side so people could come and go take photos on either side now what happened is that people started seeing each other through the wall because it sees through so they started taking photos of each other and even passing phones through the wall to each other and that I have to say because I was far away already at that time I was like someone's gonna get arrested and actually the weirdest thing ever and I would watch that on social media every day no one got arrested I was like no no no I was there for quite some days I know there's a guard on every heels overlooking the border at every moment and there's helicopters and cars passing there there's no way so those guys might be looking and say let them be for 30 days because I rented the scaffolding for 30 days so this continued going on you see the lines of cars and people and taking selfies and on that side they didn't have the wall so they had this famous board where people would use and I take photo this board became very famous actually and so anyway at some point and you see that's my process it took me time until it hit my head I was like damn we have to do something you know how those museums they do amazing opening and like closing with like dinners or we didn't do a dinner by the way that's a good idea or like having champagne or whatever so I said let's do a closing for that piece before it turned down and we actually did one mistake is we tried to ask for permission one very bad mistake cause we send the drawing of a table going through the wall and we send it to the authorities and we say well this have nothing to do with the other project we want to do it at the fence it's not us it's just another idea and they say well if you do that we'll arrest everybody and deport the ones who are not legal because you will be blocking our work which we are doing by the border we learned that on the Friday and we were planning it from the Sunday even if we haven't announced anything so we were like let's go so we went there so that's what you see from that side and so we built a table on the Mexican side only we built it and then we paced the eye of a dreamer she's from San Francisco we invited everybody from the neighborhood the parents of Kikito we had a stand of tacos we had a band there and then we had actually nobody on the other side because we couldn't install a table so we posted a new social media again to say hey who ever want to see the kid last day guys come and see the kid with this one thing tonight last day and we were just praying and trust me at 11am in the morning there was nobody 1130 two people showed up in the car we come to see the photo of the kid we're like wait can you come to the shadow on the wall and hold there for maybe not a minute but an hour we're like it's kind of hot and stuff but can we take a selfie? we're just wait here we're preparing a surprise I can't tell you what it is so they waited then another car another car and each time we passed on guys guys come here wait here then at some point there was 20 people and I was like okay guys I'm gonna pass you a tarp through the fence and then you guys gonna all go around it and hold it so we passed them the tarp and they hold it and then we sent a drone and then we sent the other half of the band that could enter the US and they play the same music on each side we would share the tacos illegal tacos going to the US side and then we stayed there for actually an hour and a half and no one came and stopped us I was like damn I was so in a hurry to take that photo but actually we could stay there and we really enjoyed that moment and it was like there was no wall pass me the salt and the salt will go and at some point a border patrol car arrived one guy comes down and I tell to the people wait send him over me I'm on the safe side anyway I'm in Mexico so he comes and then I you know I told him well at least would you have tea with us and he said yes and that was filmed with a phone and I asked the guy do you allow me to post that video because we see your name on your badge and I'm pretty sure you can be in trouble even being here with us and he said yes please do you know I don't care if I get repercussion because you know I believe in the same thing even if that's my job I also have family on the other side and he stayed there for another 20, 30 minutes and then we packed up and you know it was kind of those weird day where you're like well maybe the limits were not where we think they are and where the use of social media and photos and stuff had actually helped that and created that project well done, thank you we are going to try to get to as many of you as possible I would encourage brevity in the questions and in the answers just so we can get to as many as possible sorry, I'm just trying to be you know that was a great 3 minute story it took 8 and a half minutes it was great please and if you can share if you're willing to with the region of the city you're in but you don't have to and your credit card number we're taking every information I'm just curious you have your point and shoot camera down stairs that you found in the metro and that's what you started to shoot with so why and how did you start shooting manual photography on film and then digital it's a good question I really didn't know how to and it's a friend of a friend who was a camera of the grandfather of my girlfriend who was a really old camera that you know you kind of have to do this and that's how I did the photo of the guy with the camera I didn't have a camera for years and I would use anything that I could borrow often that camera you saw in the subway that I found in the subway because they have that strong flash but then I really was not good at you know lighting or anything and still I'm not good because I've never learned it but I really wanted to understand so each time I could have 30 minutes from a photographer who knows well I would say well explain me how do you take photos when it's snow how do you take photo when it's night and you know and I would go like that to the process but still today I think I'm not really into one camera I kind of use what's there I don't really mind and often I shoot with the phone or whatever and even with a phone I can blow it up that big so I really I'm lucky that I was born in those years where photography just became you know such democratized thank you let's go over here hi my name is Sasha I was wondering if there's a big project or something kind of on a global stage or even you know within US politics where you kind of want to do a similar thing you did with the Israelis and Palestinians or is there some really moving global cause where you feel like you need to put these two people side to side so that there can be a conversation yes well there is one that you'll see in the show that is about gun control in the US and I have to say that when I jumped in that issue I knew nothing like usual but really nothing cause I couldn't understand even living here nine years how this is possible how you can buy an AR-15 you know easier than you can you know get a drink at the local bar so I didn't understand that so when Time magazine was like well would you do a cover for us I was like I'm saying I would walk I would love to work on that issue and so what you'll see in that in that piece downstairs it's I've reunited around a table 250 people that really don't share the same ideas people from the NRA to white supremacists to black life matter black gun matter to the mother of Mike Brown to you know a governor and a mayor like all of those people and you can click on any of them and hear their story and so it was amazing to me I understand much better actually the complexity but I had to say that I found also some cracks in it because what really happened is those people would never meet they didn't meet in my studio also I was like but how can I trick those people so they would actually meet so again museums opening selfies well it's all a great mix once that was on the cover of time and they were all on the cover of time I don't know if there is Marcus the image in there yes okay so all right it's a long journey let's go bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum tak tak tak tak tak tak not this not this one not this one also let's keep going well that's the whole show by the way you don't need to go see the show now okay so that was the image and it's moving everyone it's a video the trick is that yes people were really proud they didn't come for me they didn't know me they came because the pitch was like you're gonna be on the cover of time trust me with that pitch you can get anybody so we got you know people would say well I don't want to do this time is against this and that but I'll still come and see and maybe I'll do it and then when time couldn't convince them I would say send them over to me you know you like it we use it you don't like it you just don't sign and just go oh okay that's easy I was like yeah I just I want you to be around that table you want to be the angry guy you're a nice guy you want to be listening no no I'll have stuff to say let me just I need just to conduct you a little bit you need to look that way and each time I would photograph some person I need to really calculate the eye direction to kind of build this now at the end of that I was like all right cover came out everybody you know passed it on and stuff but the real walk start when you get those people in the same room and so the way we did it is very simple we called places like the Brooklyn Museum all over the US and we would say hey guys can we show this next week and they were like are you are you dumb or are you just playing with us you need at least two or three years you know since when we planning this show it was three years so you need to plan this ahead we cannot just show you next week we don't have a room available well we don't there's exhibition now we don't have a room available okay can I have the lobby no the lobby is taken right now there's an artwork okay can I have the parking lot yes you can have the parking lot if you want all right I'll bring my projector and I will say it's an opening at the Dallas Contemporary whatever yeah sure we'll do it you know there and we will do that in every city what would happen is we would invite the people who base in Dallas who come from different background literally pro and against and all kind of pass of life from the mural and not only they were happy they were on the cover but finally they could celebrate so they would come to the museum take the whole family the grandmother the kids all dressed up and up and here we go you're there you put a few you're a bottle of champagne it's an opportunity everyone have a drink and suddenly they turn their head and here's a guy that they don't share at all the same vision now what they could do before talk to those people because they would all in the same room from the mayor to the NRA to you know the surgeon who like take the bullets of the body to the mother of Mike Brown all those people were there they would listen to each other's story and when they listen to each other's stories they realize oh I see where that guy went through because those people it was not an interview they would say well my son was killed by someone who was not supposed to have such a gun who had mental issue and yet had access to that so the person would be like hey I want you to know I've heard your story I'm you know pro-gun but I think there should be some changes because your son had died in terrible circumstances and this should not happen and then people would start talking and it was amazing to see that happening in a lot of other cities to the point that even the NRA magazine called me to do an interview and they said thank you we've never been so well represented and at the same time the mother of Mike Brown or people Black Lives Matter also were really happy in the way they were represented there was no debate on that so that that piece is now really in the museum of the NRA where you know as a permanent piece and half of those people really don't share the idea of the NRA so that's where you know I realize the power of murals and you know I can't wait for you to discover the other ones I'm scared of that guy don't be afraid don't be afraid I actually don't have a question I have a quick comment and some accolades is that allowed? thank you well this way I can drink that's cool it's about the piece walking in New York I think in the very beginning so you're going to have to go all the way back if you want to share it with the audience so my name is Karen and I'm an art history professor at Baruch College which is one of the CUNY schools and I teach right next to the schools right near Madison Park and I teach survey as I'm required to and I call them my reluctant learners because they don't want to be in that class they want to get a degree in business and make more money than I do at my age now when they're 23 so on the first day to let them know what this class is going to be and what art history means I show them this piece and it represents so much of almost all of my students of 110 in my course and it's a great in way into what art history is what it does and how they see themselves in the city and I just want to say thank you and thank you guys for the work you do because you do the real work you know every day so thank you let's go over to this microphone hello hello Chris, Dan, I live in Brooklyn I was curious to know you have kind of a dual identity on the one hand you're just the French guy who shows up and asks questions on the other hand you have been the Oscars and you're kind of this icon with your hat and glasses if these two identities ever interfere with each other or if there's a synergy with them or your life maybe a little beyond I mean you really disappear behind your art a lot you have a distinct style but you always put the art before yourself but you're also a person thank you for finally seeing that oh my god can we remember that day what he's been waiting for look it's very simple most of the country I go to have never heard of me so like before I take a big head I would have to stop traveling and just stay in the same neighborhood then the second thing is when I take off my hat and glasses no one also recognize me so I can do that even like I could be in this audience right now waiting for whoever to come and put another guy with hat and glasses and I could do the trick for a little well the thing is most of the time because of that trick I used to be completely covered I have so much freedom so that's why I keep doing it but because for the border project I really need it when you start renting builders on a monthly base you need that kind of protection to not pay fines the rest of your life so it's helping me I didn't know that when I started when I was 13 14 but it definitely made more sense especially in the DNA where now it's all facial recognition I realizing more and more how lucky I was to actually completely not exist on the internet except on the JR and to kind of be so me anonymous because I'm not completely anonymous it's not the idea now I've been arrested in many places so they know my idea it's not like I'm hiding from the world in many places if they pull up my workers they'll be like oh you're the guy who paste and what are you doing here but most of the time because they see a guy dressed differently at the border with no hat and glasses they don't they just see me as a tourist so they would have to pull those workers out to find out why I'm coming for so it have saved me a lot of time thank you hello hi my name is David I was wondering what's the next project what's the next big thing you're working on thank you David well actually so last week a friend called me and said hey man do you want to walk in the jail and I was like I mean I did once but it was not really also authorized because I was on the right side of the island so I have I pasted an entire building of the jail with no just with the warden who let me do it but we could never advertise it but you can still find the photo online and I said wait why he said no no no there's you know there's this subject you know that you should be working on which is juvenile people under 18 who took life sentence without parole I have tons of things I'm working on so I can't really but first of all how do I even get the authorization to photograph them or paste them he said well let me figure there's one guy who claims he's really connected over there and he could so I where is the place, where is the prison that was before I even chose a prison but he would say California and then he told me well look what would be the project and I cannot show my dream project really like over like having breakfast I said yeah man I don't know what I would do I would just paste the entire yarn if you get me that yes I'll do it okay hang up calls me later and say okay that guy had called the governor the governor happened to be on your mural in San Francisco before he was governor and the guy remembers being in the mural and how he loved it so he's like oh yeah yeah if he wants to do any project in California he have clearance of the 39 gels we have so I was like it sounds a bit of bullshit but I know the guy you're mentioning is really the governor right now so I was like okay well when can I scout a gel he said why you tell me I was like alright well find me a gel that the yard is in concrete and not in sand so they started looking at aerial view they found a gel to us from LA and they said well this one is concrete so I was like alright can I send my team because I had the opening you know here and so I had to send someone two friends and I said guys I know it's going to sound crazy maybe it's all bullshit but can you drive two hours out of Los Angeles to this maximum security for jail and those guys going to welcome you and apparently you can take any photo you want and even ask for a drone shot so they're like are you sure I'm like I'm not sure actually but you know just go so they went and they had the craziest day of their life they could walk on the roof they could go in the mirror door they met the inmates they even try to fly the drone actually it's a no-flight zone so the guys are like yeah fly your drone and the drone would not even like go up so they went a bit outside and like they were allowed to they were not allowed to like manage to fly send me photos and I kind of say well I'd love to do something in the yard and then they're like well they told me when you want so I'm actually flying tomorrow you know and then I'm going there and gonna meet the inmates this weekend and then probably we're trying to see a date but it might be next week or the following week to paste it so that's often and this project you would have asked me two days ago I couldn't even have mentioned and now I'm mentioning it to you it might never happen also it's always you know it's always the case it's like Kikito the little kid at the border you would have asked me that question and say well I'm gonna try to go to the border and do a project there but it's not sure I could never confirm so when I would say well you want to come to maybe the opening maybe in my arrest people are like well I mean if you're sure of the opening I would come I'm sure you know it's kind of a long way so who knows like you know let's see if it happened thank you hi I'm Tess my question is how do you decide what project to take on well I mean it's good question no I would discuss with the team so if I come with a really shitty idea and they're like well you can do it alone then I'm like alright maybe it's not a good idea so actually that's kind of and so when for example we decided to do the jail everyone at the studio is already busy like Mark here is already you can notice he's like his head is down already like that from all the project but he was like well that sounds pretty cool we should just go so that's why we're flying tomorrow and we'll be there walking all over the weekend and as much as it takes and that's why the team from Paris say oh we're staying here we don't want to go home let's go to that jail and also it's issue that I don't know well so as it goes I'm discovering that issue and we're like oh is the first idea the right one should it be only those guys or should it be also the ones who made it out because there's a new law or should it be even the families that have been impacted because of those same guys what is the story here we don't know yet we're going there and we're going to try to find out so it's interesting that often those project can change dramatically from one day to the next because we okay with the idea that maybe we had a wrong idea for a few days and at some point we're just going to decide okay that's the idea and maybe it's not the right one but at some point we're just deciding so often we go over a crazy brainstorm and we let anyone who we meet on the way jump in the brainstorm the guard, the head of the jail that guy we connected to another person who says I was talking with Adam Pasternak about that subject just earlier when we were waiting upstairs and she seemed to know much more than I know about the subject so I was learning on the way I learned about it right after that I might not know that much but at least a little more my name is Nancy I'm a photography teacher in Rockland County New York which is on most days like 30 miles well it's always 30 miles but it was a couple hours to get here today well thank you for driving all the way yeah yeah yeah no it was great so no it was terrible this is great so I have a little story that I followed maybe by a question if I'm brave enough so the story is that 10 years ago the school that I teach in participated in the inside out project my colleague Shayna my colleague Shayna set it up she's right in the center she set it up and I mentioned her because she is currently working with your team to try and get the project happening in our school so the story is that the first time we did the project with you it was amazing it was amazing taking these pictures of students and teachers and posting them all over the outside of our building created such an incredible sense of community within our school but also within the community there's this weird sense about teenagers that they're kind of scary and up to no good and they're not mostly so having their faces all over the building was amazing the pictures stayed up for over a year they just didn't come down and one of our funny stories was a couple art teachers with five gallon buckets of wheat paste climbing on the roof of the building on our free periods you know putting a picture up and then running back to teach a class and then putting another picture up and it was awesome so your team contacted us again in the spring to do the project again and like bring the photo truck and we were so excited we're so excited and I don't know what's up but our district is throwing every road block like oh the other high school in the district isn't doing it so this isn't fair or oh the insurance whatever it is like whatever road blocks we can't figure out why listening to you and listening to how you just don't give up like just we all heard something very different my mind auto completed the shit out of that you heard something different I heard you don't give up maybe that's what I wanted to hear but like you just gave us one last boost of energy to try to make this project come through so here's the question and you can totally say no but I have my video camera ready so does Shayna can you just be like hey Clarkstown North just do this man just do it what's the problem maybe be a little more professional yeah yeah I don't respect no rules an iPhone man Clarkstown North just do it don't ask permission that's forgiveness that's the truth so guys seriously whoever is blocking this we don't give a shit you can do it there's no seeing stopping us you know what even if the truck don't get there the posters will so we don't need trucks anymore we'll send the posters anyway so they'll end up being there you know just tell them by the way two things the teachers do the most incredible job and I'm serious that's why I'm dedicating most of our time on doing you know books for school doing books for kids helping the teachers that's why we reach out to school also we realize 40% of the inside projects are made by schools and are the most extraordinary projects so you guys are doing the real work that's why I love hearing the stories because I don't get to hear them often our team don't get to hear them often because when we send those posters we don't oblige anybody to tell us what happened so that's why we love we're sending videos and stories because it also keeps the team going because they work really hard to get those posters over there so the photo we print them you paste them all over the truck is fun it's magic but at the end the posters will be up so you know the project will happen there's nothing stopping you so can all the rich people stand up like this elevate yourselves okay thank you thank you and congrats that was amazing hi my name is Teresa how are you doing what your photoshop and post production process was like it's a good question trust me each time we want to start a project like this one or project like let's see this one for example this one of course I would dream to do photoshop so I could stay home I don't have to wake up every day and just make it look exactly like that without having to paste one single strip but this is not the way we do there's not much photoshop the only time we use it is in the mirror you'll see just to collage the people but if not that's the really important part is every single strip was hand pasted and by people actually who come to do it and in this case it was 400 people who came every day to paste and people we didn't knew that we would actually let paste something that they've never done before so but the good thing about this is because we're doing it live we can also see the mistakes live so everybody's looking like wrong one oh shit wrong one you always have some twists around you guys are doing the wrong one and so it's actually better just to be in the outdoor it's a much better studio great we're chatting as many as we can we're here with my hi Jen look at that we have my our teacher Leigh Ann Hinkle principal Trish McGuire and our amazing photographer Alexandra Corick who's been working with us we are also doing the inside out project we are a tiny little elementary school that represents more than 60 countries and 30 languages and our project is those kids and their individual photographs and we're doing the pasting out on our fence our United Nations day parade at the end of October so we just got the pictures in we're getting the stuff back we're taking our day off on October 9th to be pasting on boards but we're doing this as title the culture within us for our school and what we represent so what would be your message to our 200 and some odd kids from those 60 something countries and their families what would your message be to them about the importance of this inside out project you know the the thing in that question is I don't have a good answer I'm learning from them they're the one giving me the message because by doing this project they're showing me the way they all live together they're all going to do that project together why they're doing it for me the narrative that they're about to create is more interesting than mine mine is just like yes I want to hear from people I've never met in places I didn't even know about but from there on from each project I discover like that where I see how many people are involved and I'm always so impressed by how many people that are involved to pull up a project like that that you guys have to like bring in and then to take the photos and then to like paste them it's a whole because we know we do it but when we see other people doing it we're like much more impressed because we do that every day when you do that once a while like that it's like oh my god I'm so impressed by this so I'm almost like speechless because what message could I have I mean you know it's really when I started the project it was like the idea that anyone in the world could express themselves and turn the world inside out with their own message that's what people are doing and I don't want to add any message to that because that's just enough so that anybody can feel concerned about it and doing it and when I see kids in school doing it years ago I did I said yes to one school and I thought it would just be a few posters on the yard and I was just there in Paris like sure I'll come see the school I went in and they had worked on it for 6 months they had passed the posters to each family and each family would write in their own language bringing it back to the school then the kid would pass it to another family so they would look and discuss and what language is that and what this kid is from and then bring it back and they started involving the parents into it just with 20 posters those guys had made a 6 month program and I was really impressed so you know I really have no words for that except like thank you come see us please Hi my name is Dina and I live in Williamsburg and I just wanted to ask you about your working with I just wanted to ask you I just wanted to ask you about how it was working with Agnes Varda on Paces Places you know I've always been close to elderly people I grew up with my grandmothers and so when I met her I just thought I would meet this legend and that's it she invited me to have tea at her home and I went there and then we clicked and so we really started walking together on a no project when you meet someone one night and you realize you want to meet again because we had never met before and slowly this relationship grew and we really fell in love for each other and we forgot about the 55 years age difference and I forgot she was not a grandmother to me she was just another artist walking and we became friends and did those incredible journey and when someone else mentioned the Oscars earlier it's not like I didn't went to the Oscar by myself I went with her which means that I saw the Oscars in slow motion which means that I will remember every single image why? because when you walk the red carpet with Agnes Varda you go like this and so you know how normally you're like yes yes thank you how are you no there you'll be like there's a TV who say yo we want to ask you a question and we both look like that's a long journey maybe not this guy and we're like yo we're later and then suddenly you know who are DiCaprio it's passing like oh shit that was DiCaprio and then all those pill bags over there all in slow motion and then sometimes we're like oh let's take a break and we're like we'd sit and like they were still going and all those people we check our phones like let's send a photo to that friend oh my god Agnes Varda how are you? and she'll be like who is this? she's like the greatest filmmaker of all time anyway so she gave me that amazing gift of actually living in this fast life life and in slow motion and actually taking the time to walk differently to look at things differently and even if we were very active it was just another you know another way of walking so couple days ago was the premiere of the Irishman Scorsese movie and I went there and there was all her photos over because the festival, the New York Film Festival is dedicated to her and I know even if she's always like wow I don't like this Hollywood shade I don't like this tassel she had so much respect for Martin Scorsese and all the actors there that she would have been a little kid on that carpet she would have gone and look at all that and I did that for her and it was really like something she had all those paradox about making independent movie and always feeling like her film didn't get out enough because it's another kind of success and at the same time she had so much admiration for certain directors and I couldn't be there but there was Scorsese which is another film festival in Tilleride and he went there to speak about Agnes with her daughter and her son and at some point he said something that Agnes would often say he said well Agnes told me that aging was like having butterflies living which represents her memories living out of her bodies every day and seeing them go and as he said that a butterfly came on stage for about 30 minutes so it's not like something someone saw it stayed there and it would hang around and then the daughter of Agnes her name is Rosalie went to the stage manager after and he said well at this altitude we don't have much butterflies I've never seen one in this space before so I know she's there I know the other day she was there and she still have an eye on everything I do and I can hear her little voice she would always even like now she would say oh you did that talk that's great but was it free that's why the people came like no it was not oh really so who paid for them she always had questions Agnes it's not the point it was a talk because of the show oh okay and is the show free yes it is well that's why people will come then it's free she always had that voice so I think she's still there she's still present and she left that amazing legacy that people are discovering and it's funny since she passed away a lot of people have realized oh my god this woman she did all this we didn't knew so she's present well the gift that she gave to you was the gift that you gave back to us thank you thank you hi my name is Paula I'm from Mexico I have first a comment a question for you first I want to thank you for your project in like the way you've given a lot of people in communities that do not have a voice you've given them a place in the like global community and they're not like ignored or passed unnoticed anymore so thank you for that and then sorry I get nervous speaking in public but then I wanted to ask you now that you've worked with big corporations and big names like Time magazine and the Rockstone magazine and even I saw your talks took some pictures of Madonna and would you like or have you thought about getting involved in using this influences in not only raising awareness for these people but changing the realities that have to be changed for them yeah it's a good it's a good point I mean you know I realized first of course when I was starting pasting those photos I was like alright it's just maybe changing the perception but how can you change actual things you know and can you is it the role of art who knows maybe not and then we've tried a few things and we're still trying one is and you'll see it in the show couple years ago I mean ten years exactly we wrote a house in Brazil when I was 24 and and we started making a school there but you know 24 I didn't even know I haven't been to school so I didn't even know how to run a school so that's the school and it's in you know it's in Brazil on top of the favela it's still an arm favela and so we have classes every day and now it's been running ten years and the truth is those moments and all those people coming and we even built a moon you know 36 feet above the house in the sky of Rio completely illegally and bulletproof and inside bulletproof is very important and the teachers can sleep in or the artists can sleep in so they can come and give class to the kids since we have that we had actually more teachers than ever so that's the inside of the moon by the way so there is that from a small idea something can you know evolve and it's possible and I'm starting my second school in the projects with my friend Lodge you know because a fun fact the guy holding the camera like a weapon he kept on making film and he made his first film last year fiction film and he was presented in Cannes Film Festival this year and he won so he won price of the jury it's called Les Miserables you're going to hear about it because it's nominated for Oscar already from France that's the only movie they're pushing and it he certainly like became the biggest thing you know in France and in the film industry I keep hearing giant names mentioning his name where before you know like I would have to say oh this is my friends I have another like oh so you know that guy you know it's amazing and it's so we're building our own school starting January film school and art school where we don't teach actually student how to make art but how to survive as an artist how can you be a self-made artist once you okay painting you painting you know carpets like that if that's your idea great we don't discuss it now how you're going to actually show those carpets how you're going to actually send PDF to galleries how do you know even how to make a PDF do you know how to retouch your photos after do you know all the same we're showing how to you're meeting people like Mark who will tell you what it is to actually build the project and you're meeting someone from a gallery who will tell you well if you send me a PDF like that I would not even look at it so that's as cool about very concrete and we also taking all the students within our studio at different times of our projects but also I wanted to try other things things that are completely different from what we do so of course we did the lunch at the border but then when I met a chef called Massimo Botura and I realized well with food the perceptions of how we see each other I was like well I'd love to try that so in Paris let's see it might be further in Paris we actually started a restaurant for homeless and refugee where every day we get the waste food let's see or maybe it was before no it's right after okay and no it was before that was black screen by the way that was the mural of New York and we every night we serve three course like with mission star chef that comes and use all the waste food the tomatoes and you know the banana that we wouldn't buy at the supermarket we get those and they cook them in an amazing meal so if I go back I think I saw it it's after after the black thing I cannot say before you sure this guy knows more clearly so and it's been now one year and four months that we're running this every night we serve a hundred people and I have to say I've learned so much from it because I thought I know the refugee crisis in Paris I thought I know what was happening with the homeless and until you meet those people in a place which is not condescending where it's not like here's some food I'm feeding you but you're a waiter and you bring a three course meal to people by saying do you have any food allergies here's the code check for you like everyone every waiter have to play like if you're in mission star so the people are guest and when they come in let's see if it's right after that oh yes he was right never doubt Mark lesson six so every night we cook and serve and it's always like in you know in real plates real glass and it's the complete opposite of soup kitchen and of course we cannot do giant numbers but we realize the power of that so we're trying to continue that in other places like they're trying to open now in Mexico and I'm often helping on the outside but this one we built from scratch and run it and I have to say I've learned so much from it even if I have nothing to do with my work it's in the same philosophy of it thank you hi I'm Katia I'm from Ukraine but live in Brooklyn I'm curious you had so many interesting kind of half collaborations and the full collaboration with which was clearly very personal more than just a collaboration do you see kind of like do you dream of some collaboration that hasn't happened yet with someone who's like minded or can really bring something new to your style of work well I think all those collaborations really happen by accident and I'm always looking for but they don't come naturally the one with Agnes you know I explained really happened like that and we were never talking about a film for six months yet we were creating something but we wouldn't want to call it a film I love collaborating with artists and with Lodge my friend holding the camera we you know we do the school but we also working on a documentary because we have been filming in that neighborhood and all our projects since 20 years so we followed some of those kids over so we have that and we always you know keep adding to it but I think working in collaboration is really what defines you know like the restaurant is with that chef the school is with some great students and professors I mean that I've worked with over the years that we found and came it's kind of everything we do is in collaboration and so I never have a dream of with who but when it makes sense then you know then it happened it's really that thank you so it is not like breaking news in there the last one oh my god better be good the last one no pressure actually I'm a lawyer I was wondering if you need I always need a lawyer my name is Claudia I'm from Italy I moved here about five years ago I live in West Harlem and I want to thank you for your work I got to know you through my friend Elenia she works in an art gallery and she said like you have to come I came to many shows of yours and now I have actually my yeah thank you she didn't want to talk I said go say something you know him so well but I come on so you sent your friend that's cool yeah I have your yeah she's here I'm a lawyer actually I'd love to do human rights so I'm working to do human rights and I really love like your work that are such a social impact when I saw them I was it's amazing how art can be like so powerful and I have your art like the migrants walking my office I carried this morning the frame on the train super packed I was going to say I wanted that I migrated myself so I wanted and I want I want to thank you and say maybe have you thought about collaborating with like civil rights activists or pro bono lawyers because when I see your work I think I think I can like myself I say myself for like any organization with lawyers doing pro bono like volunteering for migrants for refugees or like for the right of education for kids people need help maybe you know you can have an impact that is even more than awareness as like the girl before me was saying like make a change so if you I mean you ever think about in that school in Brazil the first thing we had because we had no teachers is a group of lawyers exactly like that in Brazil came to us and say well guys we know you opened that space can we come when you don't have school in the mornings or will you tell us the time and we have volunteers lawyers who want to help people in the favelas feel their papers and we're like okay that's not really the concept of the school but why not and actually they were the first one using the school on the first year or two it was amazing because a lot of the people from the favela who didn't know how to write or read would come and say I have this problem with taxes I have this problem with this and help them so whenever it makes sense we do you know but I hope to create more project like that so that it can embrace better you know the powerful tool that you have of knowing all those laws yeah and you kind of represent you know the idea when they say oh I don't think about money but have passion and create your ideas and I'm like you represent that well thank you thank you thank you so we're about to segue to the next part where you get to partake and have this lovely communal experience of this art we've been talking about Margot's going to explain how that works I just want to say something to you because I've been learning a lot from this process and from trying to prepare for it and I thought I think I get what it is that you and your team do and we're talking in this country right now a lot about what democracy is even the Finnish president is telling our president what democracy is and we have these really fancy words in America right that we try to have a government buy of and for the people and I think your work is all those things right it's buy people it's of people it's for people and it is providing that dignity and that sort of self-awareness that collective self-awareness that we look for in so many other places but you and your folks have helped us realize that it's inside of us as well so I just want to thank you and that your art has a democratic practice and it's very beautiful and congratulations Thank you Give it up for JR Well I wanted to ask my team to stand up but now we won't notice them We're all on the team I see two here Margot and Marc and I see Ariel here also so let's give them a big round of applause and there is our intern Luca right there he was doing inside out and now he's with us and maybe our future intern right here so thank you