Inside Out Project 11 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Mar 2 2011

Location: 

Worldwide, Online

After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.

Over the past decade, more than 500,000 people spanning across 152 countries and territories have participated in the Inside Out Project. Thanks to participants' donations, the project has reached all the continents, with over 2,500 actions created. Actions have revolved around a range of topics: diversity, community, feminism, racism, climate change, education, children’s rights, and art are just a few of them. Posters are displayed in outdoor spaces that are visible to the public. These Group Action installations are documented and shared online.

Together we can turn the world inside out!

External sources: 

https://www.insideoutproject.net/en/about
Posted by jeremy_burmeister on May 10 2025

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Activates (people)Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Provides (a useful service)Provides a useful social service.
Shifts (culture)Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.
Sustains (change)Support and celebrate change that has already been won and needs to be sustained.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
The Inside Out Project’s long-term goals are to amplify marginalized voices, democratize access to art, foster global solidarity, encourage civic engagement, and build a living archive of community expression. By turning personal portraits into public art, it aims to inspire empathy, awareness, and collective action worldwide.

Notes

The Inside Out Project invites people to take black-and-white portraits, which are printed as large posters and pasted in public spaces to highlight community identities and social issues. Organized locally but connected globally, it turns personal images into collective statements, making public art a tool for visibility and activism. Using this simple model allows it to be shifted into any issue needed, and grants easy-access to the methods. This makes it a very effective project.