20 October 2010

TED Prize winner JR to the New York Times: “I’m kind of stunned”

Randy Kennedy of the New York Times got an interview with JR, winner of the 2011 TED Prize, for this morning’s Times. From the story:

Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where he was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.

But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”

Read the full story (including a gorgeous slideshow) >>

Posted by Emily McManus | Permalink | 1 Comment | Trackback