TED POD: JR's TED Prize Wish: Use Art To Turn The World Inside Out

March is the time of year during which some of the brightest minds on the planet get together in Long Beach, California for a critical mass throwdown of information sharing known also as TED 2011

We'll be embedding a selection of what we think are the choicest talks from this years line-up. First up is JR, recipient of the 2011 TED Prize.

JR rolls deep in the heart of slums and favelas around the globe, and his work is relevant not just because he doesn't give a fuck about authority, institutions, government,  and the empirical cannon at large, but because he likes to wear his sunglasses inside.

 Solidarity all day, brother.

JR's Bio [TED]

Working anonymously, pasting his giant images on buildings, trains, bridges, the often-guerrilla artist JR forces us to see each other. Traveling to distant, often dangerous places -- the slums of Kenya, the favelas of Brazil -- he infiltrates communities, befriending inhabitants and recruiting them as models and collaborators. He gets in his subjects’ faces with a 28mm wide-angle lens, resulting in portraits that are unguarded, funny, soulful, real, that capture the sprits of individuals who normally go unseen. The blown-up images pasted on urban surfaces – the sides of buildings, bridges, trains, buses, on rooftops -- confront and engage audiences where they least expect it. Images of Parisian thugs are pasted up in bourgeois neighborhoods; photos of Israelis and Palestinians are posted together on both sides of the walls that separate them.

JR's most recent project, "Women Are Heroes," depicts women "dealing with the effects of war, poverty, violence, and oppression” from Rio de Janeiro, Phnom Penh, Delhi and several African cities. And his TED Prize wish opens an even wider lens on the world -- asking us all to turn the world inside out. Visit insideoutproject.net ...