The archive · Public & Social · Strategic decision · 2011–2024
Inside Out: JR turns his TED Prize wish into world's largest participatory art project
Winning the 2011 TED Prize, JR let anyone upload a portrait, get a giant poster by mail, and paste it in public — 500,000+ joined in 152 countries.
Inside Out Project
What it had to solve
In 2011 JR, a French street artist famous for pasting huge portraits of ordinary people on walls, won the TED Prize — $100,000 and one wish to change the world. Instead of making another artwork himself, he chose to hand the medium to everyone.
How it works
When JR won the 2011 TED Prize — $100,000 and one wish to change the world — he used the moment to give his own art form away. His wish was that people would 'stand up for what they care about by participating in a global art project'.
The mechanism was deliberately simple: upload a portrait, receive a large black-and-white poster by mail, paste it in a public place. Inside Out's studio handled printing and shipping, so participation cost almost nothing; communities could file a 'Group Action' of 50 or more portraits around a shared cause, and every action was archived online.
The project spread through the strength of the gesture rather than any advertising. In Tunisia, participants pasted portraits over the iconography of the fallen dictator; in Brooklyn, a resident organised portraits of immigrant shopkeepers on brownstone stoops. Within three months of the wish, more than 15,000 posters existed.
The numbers grew from there: over half a million participants in 152 countries and territories, and more than 2,500 documented actions by 2024. A feature documentary, Inside Out: The People's Art Project, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013 and aired on HBO.
Why it lands
- It inverted the art world's usual logic: the artist set up the printing press and gave it away, so the portraits belonged to the participants, not to JR.
- The ritual — upload, receive, paste — was so simple it travelled without instructions, and every action produced a shareable photo.
- Because anyone could use it, the same format served wildly different causes, from revolution in Tunisia to gentrification protests in Brooklyn.
- Capping actions to groups of 50 or more turned individuals into communities and gave the pastings physical scale on city streets.
What it did
Within months over 15,000 posters had been created — including portraits pasted over the fallen dictator's face in Tunisia and shopkeepers on Brooklyn stoops. By 2024 more than 500,000 people across 152 countries had taken part in over 2,500 actions; a documentary about it premiered at Tribeca 2013 and aired on HBO.
What you can take
Give people a simple ritual they can own: the platform did the printing, participants did the pasting, so the art belonged to the community — and scaled to 152 countries with no brand behind it.
Since then
Inside Out outlived its one-year plan by more than a decade. The project's own numbers count over 500,000 participants in 152 countries, and it remains active, with new Group Actions organised every year. JR went on to make other participatory works — a trompe-l'oeil at the Louvre with 400 volunteers in 2019, a film with Agnès Varda nominated for an Oscar — but Inside Out stayed the largest example of his idea that the artist's role is to hand over the wall.
Sources
- JR makes his wish: A global art project to turn the world inside out
- Street artist's wish to change the world
- JR's 'Inside Out' Street Art Project Meets Brooklyn's Gentrification War
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card