Reading the Riot Art

Twenty years ago the <a href="https://www.jr-art.net/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">French street artist JR</a> began a photographic project called Portrait of a Generation with his friend, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/20/ladj-ly-shocking-president-macron-paris-riot-film-les-miserables-la-haine" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">film-maker Ladj Ly</a>. It was JR’s first major project in a career that has seen him become one of France’s leading contemporary artists. Back then both young men were full of hope about making change happen in the marginalised Parisian communities where they had grown up, and with this project they wanted to create a body of work that communicated alternative narratives and representations of their friends and families. JR was brought up in the concrete jungle of housing estates on the outskirts of Paris, far from the city’s middle-class central districts. Ladj was also from one of these Parisian suburbs, Les Bosquets, a community of people from largely African descent living in run-down tower blocks. At that time these were neighbourhoods with many underlying problems and social issues that had gone unaddressed over many years. Huge tensions had been building up in the local population due to limited education options, poor employment opportunities, lack of transport infrastructure, and bad community relations with the police. <a href="https://thegallerycompanion.medium.com/reading-the-riot-art-ec4471c828f5">Read More</a>