“We use images like a weapon to fight for social causes,” says a man in the trailer for INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, a new documentary that airs on HBO tonight. The doc tells the story of JR’s INSIDE OUT, a global art project in which anyone, anywhere, can send the artist a portrait and have a poster-sized version sent back to them for pasting in public spaces. JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outSince the project’s launch in 2011, when JR received the TED Prize, these oversized black-and portraits with a faded polka dot motif in the background have become a fixture on the walls, fences and sidewalks all around the world. To date, more than 130,000 INSIDE OUT posters have been pasted in more than 100 countries.

INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, directed by Alastair Siddons, isn’t about untangling the identity of JR  – who always appears in public wearing Ray Bans and fedora. Instead, it aims to show how people around the globe have made this fascinating project their own. Yes, cameras show JR in his Paris studio but, from there, they travel to Haiti, where photographer Benoit has pasted up dozens of images of those living in tent cities following the devastating earthquake of 2010. The message: that while hardship continues in the country, people remain infused with hope.

The film goes on to bring viewers to North Dakota and the West Bank, where major INSIDE OUT actions have been launched, as well as to Tunisia, where portraits of everyday people are revolutionary in and of themselves. “We were always seeing pictures of the dictators,” says an INSIDE OUT artist in the country. “Now it’s people—Tunisians.”

INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April. And tonight, the film makes its television debut on HBO at 9pm ET/PT. The documentary will also be available on demand through June 30. Find out more about the film and its airdates at HBO’s website »

See JR interviewed about the documentary by Christiane Amanpour last Friday »

Are you or someone you know interested in launching a worldwide project on the scale of INSIDE OUT? Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are open, from now until June 16 »

JR, the man behind the participatory global art project INSIDE OUT, has parked a photobooth truck in Times Square, from now until May 10. Photo: Instagram/newyorkermag

On an unseasonably chilly Monday evening in Manhattan, hundreds stood in line in Times Square for up to two hours. As a city-dweller for seven years, I’ve seen queues this long for big Broadway openings or on New Year’s Eve. But this line was formed for a very different purpose — for people to have their faces and stories featured in what JR describes as “the biggest art gallery in the world.”

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outIt’s been three years since TED Prize winner JR made the wish to turn the world INSIDE OUT with a global collaborative art project. As a documentary about the project premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last weekend, JR decided to use his time in New York productively. He hatched the plan to park a truck with a photobooth on-board in the middle of Times Square, as he’s done in other cities before. As soon as I heard about this project, I knew that I wanted to be one of the volunteers for the truck’s inaugural night in my hometown.

When I arrived in Duffy Square (the northern triangle of Times Square), stunning rows of freshly pasted black and white portraits covered the ground. Smiling, smirking and winking visages of passersbys — with homes as diverse as the Bronx and Tokyo — replaced the usual bareness of the concrete. Throughout my shift, elders, painters, skateboarders, toddlers and even NYC’s infamous Naked Cowboy posed for INSIDE OUT’s camera, adding their photos to the street-side quilt of images that breathed life and humanity into the street.

As an INSIDE OUT volunteer, I learned how to capture and distribute large-scale portraits and make and apply wheat-paste. Over and over again, commuters interrupted their busy and purposeful strides and stopped to behold “the people’s art project.” Since I was adorned in INSIDE OUT’s trademark black and white spotted t-shirt, I was repeatedly asked about the origins of the project, how people could get involved, and how much it would cost to buy the portraits. Almost everyone eagerly jumped in line after learning that they could participate by giving their time, image and elbow-grease to help paste pictures.

Placing the faces of strangers side-by-side in a collective masterpiece created a powerful sense of community. People marveled at the process of taking their pictures in the speckled black and white photobooth and watched in awe as their likeness printed from the side of the truck. I spoke to one man who was so addicted to the practice of snapping and pasting his photo, that he has followed JR’s installation to three cities around the world, including Tokyo and New York.

As I walked away from Times Square, I thought of the thousands of people who have contributed 120,000 portraits to city walls, streets and countless other surfaces from Tunisia to South Dakota. I wondered if volunteers in the each of the 110 countries INSIDE OUT has touched experienced what I did. Did they see giggling children who were shorter than the portraits of their likeness dance blissfully with images of themselves? Did they witness a bride and groom take photos in their wedding finery and paste their pictures next to each other to symbolize their bond? Or, did they see what I repeatedly witnessed, a sense of recognition, pride and purpose in the eyes of folks who were given a moment to be truly seen – with big, bold, authentic, and honest emotion.

“The people’s art project” gave New Yorkers a chance to choose to remain anonymous while also being visible. By providing us with an opportunity to pause and be present together, INSIDE OUT created a humbling a sense of intimacy in the most populous city in the United States.

Help INSIDE OUT transform the city! If you live in New York City or will be visiting between now and May 10, email nyc@insideoutproject.net to volunteer by yourself or with a group.

Are you or someone you know interested in launching a worldwide project on the scale of Inside Out? Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are open, from now until June 16 »

The artist himself examines the portraits tiled in Times Square. Photo: Anna Verghese

Pasting in progress. Photo: Instagram/JR

A bride and groom make their portraits kiss at the INSIDE OUT photo truck. Image: Instagram/JR

The bride snaps her portrait. Photo: Instagram/NewYorkerMag

A closer look at a section of portraits. Image: Anna Verghese

A view of the truck itself. Photo: Instagram/NewYorkerMag

Musician Pharrell Williams takes a moment to add his image to the mosaic. Photo: Instagram/JR

Artist JR’s Inside Out photo truck is parked in Times Square in New York City through May 10 for a project he calls “Art vs. Advertising.” Photo: Instagram.com/newyorkermag

TED Prize winner JR rolled into New York this weekend for the premiere of his documentary, INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, at the Tribeca Film Festival. But that was far from the renegade artist’s only stop.

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outWith a photobooth truck in tow, he performed actions in Red Hook and the Rockaways, two areas hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in the fall. Now, JR is parking the truck in Times Square for a full two weeks, through May 10. Oh, and did I mention that he’s also taking over the Instagram account @newyorkermag for seven days to post some of the best images he captures through it all?

This has been an exceptionally busy time for JR. In addition to the documentary and New York actions, JR also recently released the digital book, The Wrinkles of the City, Los Angeles – an ode to the inhabitants of the city who’ve lived there for decades, through myriad cultural changes. Right before heading to New York, JR stopped in Berlin, where he and his crew similarly pasted 15 walls with images of older Berliners. At the same time, JR also released an app which allows fans to browse Inside Out projects across the world through a beautiful map.

See images of all of the above in this gallery.

Are you or someone you know interested in launching a worldwide project on the scale of Inside Out? Nominations for the 2014 TED Prize are open, from now until June 16 »

JR takes a self portrait of his team on the red carpet of the Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary, “INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project,” premiered on April 20. TED’s own Anna Verghese was on hand and said of the premiere, “Alastair Siddon’s film is a glowing testament to the passion and commitment of the hundreds of thousands of people JR’s wish has inspired worldwide.” Photo: Instagram.com/jr/

A shot of Inside Out posters on what used to be a boardwalk in The Rockaways. Photo: Instagram.com/jr/

Residents of Red Hook paste up Inside Out images — as JR announces that he’s taking over The New Yorker’s Instagram account. Photo: Instagram.com/jr/

The Inside Out truck stationed in Times Square. Says TED’s Anna Verghese, who was there as it parked, “Hundreds of people descended upon Times Square to share their faces and stories. It’s a great reminder of the power of art to start a conversation.” Photo: Instagram.com/jr/

An aerial shot as more people paste their Inside Out images in the center of Times Square. Photo: Instagram.com/jr/

An image of a building in Los Angeles, included in JR’s iPad book, “The Wrinkles of the City, Los Angeles.” Photo: JR-art.net

Another view of a pasted building in Los Angeles. Photo: JR-art.net

The wrinkles of Berlin. Photo: JR-art.net

A screenshot of a new app that lets you look up INSIDE OUT projects by their location. Photo: JR-art.net

The documentary INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project will premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival in New York this Saturday, April 20, giving an intimate look into the courageous victories and heartrending challenges involved in creating the world’s largest participatory art project.

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outIn 2011, French street artist JR announced his TED Prize winning wish to connect people worldwide through a collaborative artistic action. He launched INSIDE OUT, inspiring thousands of people — from South Dakota to Iran — to collectively transform their personal identities into public artwork. From Moscow to Tunisia, citizens have turned more than 120,000 digital portraits into bold posters covering everything from city walls to trains.

Besides shifting the way INSIDE OUT’s participants and onlookers contemplate storytelling and public space, JR’s big dream has inspired diverse individuals to define the soul, values and vision of their communities with a few simple tools — a camera, paper and paste.

Inside Out: The People’s Art Project debuts on HBO on May 20^th at 9PM ET. For a sneak peek, watch the trailer above.

Inspired? Participate in an action in your community »

Check out just a few of the amazing — and stunning –images pasted in cities across the world »

Have an idea for a wish to inspire the world? TED Prize nominations are open. Find out more here »

This group of activists from Seoul, Korea, visited New York City, hoping to raise awareness of “Comfort Women” – some 200,000 Korean women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Army during WWII. These women, now elderly, have yet to receive reparations.

JR is an artist with a desire to transform our collective streets — from French public houses to Brazilian favelas. As he describes in his talk from TED2011, JR headed to the barrier wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories for his project “Face 2 Face,” JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out pasting massive portraits the size of houses on either side of the wall. The goal: to catch both sides off guard with their similarities and give them the experience of relating to the other by staring them straight in the face. JR found that people are thirsty to heal in this way — to be seen and to share a story through a simple image.

After winning the 2011 TED Prize, JR transformed his mission to a global scale with Inside Out. Through the initiative, any willing participant can send a portrait (or a series of them), and receive the images back as posters, ready to be pasted anywhere with a social purpose in mind. The purposes and messages may vary, but the images hold a common thread. These public exhibits are then documented and shared on the project’s website.

In August, Inside Out surpassed the goal of dispersing 100,000 posters. But they are hardly stopping there. Below, see images of some recent projects, pasted all around the globe — from Colombia to New Zealand.

This project went on behind bars in a women’s prison in Medellin, Colombia. The idea was to photograph those incarcerated and interview them about what they plan to do upon release.

This school in Christchurch, New Zealand, was hit hard by an earthquake, and the community lacks the funds to rebuild it. To increase support, participants of Inside Out pasted posters of the children who attended the school, and their grandparents who — generations ago — also studied there.

This project from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was undertaken to represent the many different occupations represented in the city, not to mention the diversity to be appreciated there.

Cyclists in Utrecht, Germany, began this initiative to share the stories of young bike-riders.

In Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico, a group of students pasted the many diverse faces of their community, to instill pride for residents and to help encourage their artistic endeavors.

Some members of Tokyo’s community wanted to give honor to the various volunteers of many fields — their efforts spanning across earthquake relief, domestic abuse counselors and food bank assistants. Their portraits were plastered across the city.

Amy Lehman runs a floating healthcare clinic along Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, in Kigoma, she pasted these posters on the walls of the village.

As a form of non-violent protest in Madrid, Spain, these posters were used to display the faces of those who are being harmed by living under corrupt government.

In an effort to stand up to bullying, this action, titled “Not in Our Schools,” took place in Palo Alto, California, in order to advocate acceptance in local high schools.

And a bonus video action:

In the dark of night, these posters of Taiwanese youth were pasted alongside portraits of youth from Mainland China. It’s an expression of hope toward a more united future. These posters were immediately removed by the Chinese public authorities, but not before this footage of the pasting (and subsequent removal) was captured.

Artist JR’s Inside Out Project has dispersed more than 100,000 stunning black-and-white posters all over the world, intended for groups to paste in their communities to draw attention to social injustice. Today, JR awoke to witness this amazing project, from a group at Les Bosquets in Montfermeil, a suburb of Paris.

As JR explains on Instagram, “Love waking up discovering an inspiring action! This is Inside Out done by locals during the destruction of their projects in the north of Paris. This building happens to be the first one I pasted 10 years ago!”

See more Inside Out actions at the project’s website.

JR’s art isn’t meant to be hung in an ornate frame in a museum or gallery. For more than a decade, the street artist has printed poster-sized photographs and pasted them on city walls to dramatic effect, always with a social point in mind. JR has pasted images of the teens living in housing projects on the streets of Paris, and tiled images of Israelis and Palestinians side-by-side on Israel’s separation barrier. In 2008, he dotted cityscapes of Brazil, India, France, Kenya and Cambodia with haunting portraits of women’s eyes.

In 2011, JR was selected for the TED Prize and was granted $100,000 to enact one wish to inspire the world. His wish, as described in this moving TEDTalk: that people around the globe have a chance to show the world their true face. And thus he founded Inside Out, a worldwide participatory art project whereby anyone can take a photograph, upload it to the website, and have a poster-sized version sent to them in the mail, to be pasted in their own community. As of today, over 100,000 posters have been printed through the project and pasted in over 110 countries globally.

The scene above can be seen in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Sending in this image to Inside Out, the creators of the mural explained the meaning behind their project. “We want to show a traditional community of Brazil in the metropolitan of Belo Horizonte. They form a group of the black resistance to slavery in Brazil and they survive by performing at its traditional festivals,” they say. “The community named Irmandade do Rosário de Justinópolis is in the city of Ribeirão and stands out because of poverty and urban violence.”

Below, check out seven more recent Inside Out projects.

Inside Out is very excited to have recently shipped these images to Beijing. The project organizers wrote, “Youth is the future. Through the eyes of the young adults from Taiwan and the Mainland, we may see the possible future relationship across the strait.”

In this short documentary uploaded in April, members of Armidale Australia’s native aboriginal community, explain why they wanted to be a part of Inside Out. Watch as they paste up posters by the light of sparklers.

This recent large-scale action in Charleroi, Belgium, focuses on the power of the smile.

Inside Out was excited to recently receive this image of posters on the streets of South Korea , featuring residents of North Korea.

Despite being behind bars, these 15 women incarcerated in prison in Medellin, Colombia, became part of the project. In this video uploaded in June, see who they are — and what they plan to do when they’re released.

This brick wall in Newburg, New York, was recently decorated with posters. The team behind the project explains, “We want to celebrate the people of the city of Newburgh, who live with hope, determination, courage and faith to meet the challenges of a community laden with poverty and crime, and support each other to rise above.”

This week, Inside Out shipped over 100 posters to Managua, Nicaragua, for a project focusing on residents there. The organizers write, “Despite past wars, dictatorships, earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, Nicaraguans take every opportunity to smile, smile, smile and smile.”

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While JR was awarded $100,000 for his TED Prize project, this year the cash prize has been raised to $1 million. And the deadline to nominate someone is quickly approaching. From now until August 31, head to the TED Prize nominations page to recommend a mentor, idol, colleague, teacher, parent, friend — even yourself — for the 2013 TED Prize. We are looking high and low for a visionary leader with a beautiful, actionable wish and know that you, the TED community, will be an invaluable source for inspiring ideas.

The topics of three different TEDTalks are converging this weekend in New York City …

Street artist JR, the winner of the 2011 TED Prize, is pasting a portrait of a young member of the Lakota tribe on a wall of Manhattan’s High Line Park — part of a massive tribute to the Native American nation that’s being pasted in North Dakota and around New York City. Watch the progress on our Pinterest. JR mentions this project in his newest TEDTalk, “One year of turning the world inside out”:

This project celebrates the lives of North Dakota Native American people. To learn more about these lives, watch this astonishing TEDx talk from National Geographic photographer Aaron Huey, whose work with nations in the Black Hills of North Dakota has led him to make this conclusion: Honor the treaties. Give back the Black Hills.

If you’re moved by this talk, learn more. Huey has teamed up with the artists Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena for a series of Honor the Treaties posters you can download and share.

And finally, the Inside Out Project pasting is happening in the vast new public space called the High Line Park — whose creation is detailed in Robert Hammond’s TEDTalk “Building a park in the sky.” The High Line was born on an elevated railway platform once destined to be torn down — and it’s now inspiring more cities to take a fresh look at their unlikely green spaces.

This morning the people of Port au Prince woke up to portraits of their own – locals and members of the Haitian diaspora – plastered around the city. From Cité Soleil to Petion-Ville, over 500 images, taken by Haitian photographers and printed by JR’s Inside Out Project, celebrate the resilience of the Haitian people and visualizing a country being reborn.

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First image credit: Inigo Gilmore

All other image credit: Anna Verghese