Art Not Just For Art's Sake in Kenya
Not all art is strictly about the aestetic, some pieces
provide an important function in the community like the
large black and white photographs installed this week on
rooftops across Kibera, Kenya. The intimate photos, taken by
photographer JR, act as a second roof, protecting the
villages delicate structures from water damage, a vital job
in one of Africas worst slums.
Over 2,000 feet of rooftops were covered with pictures of
the faces of the women of Kibera. As part of the
installation JR also covered a train that passes through the
village twice a day with images of the womens eyes and then
plastered the bottom half of their faces on a slope just
below the tracks.
This way, when the train passes through it completes the
womens faces. A gallant effort considering the only things
wrapped around buses in America are advertisements. The
collection of rooftop faces is the artists most grandiose
project to date, so large it can be seen on Google Earth.
JR has been working undercover throughout Europe installing
large photographs on the sides of building and turning
streets into open air galleries for nearly a decade. He
displayed huge photos of teenagers on the European Center
for Photography and the Hotel de Ville in Paris as part of
his renowned 2006 project, "28 millimeters".
The Kibera project is not the first time JR has combined art
with a cause. In 2005, he founded the Face 2 Face Project
with fellow photographer, Marco. The two artists took
portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job
and posted them face to face in large formats on the Israeli
and the Palestinian sides. The project was intended to point
out the similarities between the two groups and hopefully
become a stepping stone toward ending violence in the
region.
Unlike most art installations, the Kibera project has no end
date and JR is hopeful it will be long lasting, not for is
own ego, but for the sake of the Kibera people.
--
"We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders."
-- anonymous Vietnamese poem
"Nothing can be said about the sea."
-- Mr Selvam, Akkrapattai, India 2004
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