September 11, 2017
Last week French artist JR unveiled an art installation at the Tecate border. Since 2001, JR has been pasting his black and white images all over the world. He launched a global campaign by placing large-scale images in public space using his camera to shine a light on community heroes, to make political statements, and to give, in his words, people dignity all over the world. JR states that the street is the “largest art gallery in the world”, and often challenges widely held preconceptions and the reductive images propagated by media.
In 2011 he won the TED Prize, and used the $100,000 award money to fund his ongoing Inside Out project, which empowers people in different communities worldwide to take their photographs and paste them in public as an act of defiance. “Image is part of the healing process”, he has said.
The installation will be visible close to the Tecate border for a month ending October 7th and came out only a few days after President Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) after a six-month delay. When interviewed by the media upon the revelation of “Kikito”, JR said he only wanted to bring back perspective: “for this little kid, there are no walls and borders”.