JR’s work turns walls and streets into canvases for change, inspiring communities worldwide through art, film, photography, and performance.
At Davos, artist JR argued that the most powerful murals are less about images than about systems that convene people. Beginning with “just strips of papers pasted next to each other” in the Paris suburbs, he learned that public art can shift perception by confronting audiences who “not necessarily wanted to see art that day.” His projects scale that insight: pairing Israeli and Palestinian portraits so “people could not recognize who is who,” amplifying women’s eyes across Kibera, and building a legal “scaffolding” baby portrait that prompted thousands to talk, swap phones, and even “pass salt through the wall” at the US–Mexico border.
JR’s throughline is participation: “the art is that connection between the people.” He designs works that require collective labor, from 400 volunteers pasting the Louvre courtyard to fabric images carried by crowds in Ukraine, Colombia, and beyond. He also tests impact. In California’s Tehachapi prison, inmates, guards, and victims’ families co-created a yard-scale mural and a “Murals” app with audio stories; five-year tracking showed measurable change, including security downgrades and releases for over 60% of participants. JR embraces ephemerality—“it’s not a problem… it’s part of it”—aiming to leave lasting memory, not permanent objects.
Ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. My name is Joseph Fowler, and I'm the head of arts and culture at the World Economic Forum. A very warm welcome to everyone that's joining us here in the fusion room in Davos. And a very warm welcome to everyone who's joining us online. This afternoon's session is called Murals That Speak. And I'm very proud to present the artist JR.
Thank you. Thank you. Well I'm going to take you to a lot of images. So stay focused with me. But it's going to tell you a bit of the story and how I discovered the power of art, and how can art change the world. That's how I started in the projects of Paris, photographing my friend who holds his video camera like a weapon, and then right after pasting it on the walls with paper. So that's the one thing you have to understand is this just strips of papers pasted next to each other. And that's the technique basically. And so when after the riots that happened in this neighborhood, they were about to turn down the building, I pasted the faces of the habitants in the buildings. And as they were eating the buildings, the faces would appear. When I understood the power of that, I continue. And I started traveling. I was probably 18 or 19 years old, and I went in the Middle East, and at that time, in the projects outside Paris, everybody was talking about the Middle East, but none of us have ever gone. And so I went there with my friend Marco, and we actually photographed people doing the same job. So two taxi driver, two students, two professors and and so one from each side and in the street, people could not recognize who is who. And we did this in Israel and in Palestine. A photo I love also is how when the nuns pass the street, they recognize the priest and they started pasting and I was like, wow, there's such an incredible power in art that suddenly people, you know, start participating in ways that I had never imagined. So I went in Brazil and I started working with the community of Providencia and pasting the photos of the woman on their community. And because I, you know, the houses were often vertical or horizontal, I started like cropping inside the face and only show the eyes. At that time I was like, okay, wow. You know, this took me way more, way longer to do because it was not something you do overnight. So it took us more than 25 days to do, and each time the community would get involved and help. And I realized actually the power of involving the community in it. And it was really the first time that I was like, oh, wow, actually, we don't have to just do this, me and my team, but the people can participate. So I went to Kenya to continue that Women Are Heroes project. And there in the slum of Kibera, the people were like, wait, we don't understand. Have you missed, you know, part of the faces, because we don't really understand why the eyes are missing. And then when the train arrived, it started connected with the faces. The beautiful thing about this is that the train never stopped. And so whoever was there got a seat. But whoever I remembered this man going home with his groceries, and he never turned back, so he never saw it. And it really made me think of, oh, wow, when you make public art, actually, you can really change the perceptions of people, but also you you're talking to people who not necessarily wanted to see art that day. And that beauty of that confrontation made me want to think, okay, how can I go even further than the walls? And then I was like, okay, you know, if there's no walls I could build in water. This was during the Olympics, and I wanted to show some of the athletes who were. Her dream was to make it one day, but could never do it. And so this guy was from, Sudan, and he's now doing, you know, a jump over a building in the middle of Rio during the Olympics. And yet he was not part of the team there. So I was like, okay, there's no limit to the city. And even on a wall that, you know, I can't paste on this is I don't know if you heard about it. It's a small wall between us and Mexico and I cannot paste on it. So I was like, okay, what should I do there? If you look up there, there's a few houses. And when I was scouting in the area, this is Mexico, this is us. I realized that there was a family living there and there was super nice and welcoming their home. And, you know, when I was in there, there was a little baby in his crib and I asked his mom if I could take a photo, and she said, sure. And I said, well, if I do something with it, I'll reach out to you. Then I went and I asked, whose land was this? And nobody knew. So a good trick. You rent a caterpillar and you start digging, and then you see if someone stops you. No one was stopping me. So at some point I was like, all right, maybe I should rent a scaffolding. So rented a scaffolding, built plywood on it, went back to see the mom, you see who lives right there and say, all right, may I paste your son on this structure that I just built? And she said, of course. So the next day we pasted Kikito, and now he was looking over the wall. And, you know, it was interesting to think for one and a half year old, what does a wall mean to him? You know, what is a frontier mean to him? And so people started coming and seeing this piece. We had actually rented the scaffolding, for 30 days. So I just told people on social media, guys, you can come, you can come on either side. It's legal to use those roads and you can come see the work. And actually hundreds of people and then thousands started coming and they would talk through the wall and pass each other's phone to ask each other's selfies. And I could not believe this. So at the end of the installation, we decided actually to build, you know, a table like a picnic table. But we got told that if we do that, then they'll arrest people. So we're like, okay, on the Mexican side, we'll use a real table, but on the US side, we'll just use a tarp. And then we sat and for a minute you would think, oh wow, we're really eating together. And after 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, no one came. It was really strange because this is a very secure place that's been checked every five minutes and no one was coming. So we really started to have a lunch. And the musician here, five on one side, the other five on the other side, we pass salt through the wall. And there was really this moment, you know, of togetherness. This was incredible. And I never forget at the end, one Border Patrol came and you can find that video online. We shared a tea together and we actually stayed friends. He just asked us, okay guys, we left you a couple of hours. Now it's maybe time to go. Then I realized, okay, how else can I bring people together if it's not with paper, if it's not with plywood? So we started printing on fabric. And this was in Ukraine right at the beginning of the war. We went there with my team and gathered hundreds of people in the middle of Lviv, and we opened this photo of this little girl that had just fled the country, just to show the planes that were bombing every day, the kind of people that were under us on the ground. And then we continued and did this in Mauritania. And each time the beauty of it is that the community this was in Colombia would gather and really carry that child. And then at some point, I gathered all of those images. We also went to Rwanda, to Greece, and none of those children knew that when I photographed them, I wanted them to one day run together, like if they were really running together, even if each of them come from a different country. So a big part of my work is really the process is how to bring people together to do these kinds of actions. Now, this is a museum in Paris called the Louvre. I don't know if you heard of it. I love talking about my local museum when I go to different cities. A couple of years ago, I was invited to, make the pyramid disappear. And the reason I did that by pasting the the building on the back on top of it, it's because when I went there, people traveled from around the world to go see the pyramid, but then they turn their back to take a selfie. And so I was like, well, why don't I make the pyramid disappear? And then a couple years later, they actually invited me again. I was like, okay, maybe this time I'll make it appear. So to paste this whole ground of the Louvre, we actually where there's like 1500 strips every day, we had 400 people pasting together and that people that don't know each other until we completed that piece. And then the next day it got open and thousands of people could walk there. And the beautiful thing is, the more you walk, the more it would disappear under your feet. It was paper. So people started grabbing it, saying, oh, this has value. Somebody said, no, we have to put this in the recycle bin. And everybody was so confused. And for days while the piece disappeared, people were confused. It's like, well, is this art? You know, what should I do with it? Should I sell it? And I loved that because art should raise questions, not give answers. And so in a lot of my process, I make sure if you see also they never signed those works. It's just it's there. And if you just passing by there you have to question yourself or what it means. This was under the Eiffel Tower, another small monument we have in France that I invite you to visit one day. And then, I went to Italy also, and during Covid actually opened facades so that, you know, you could see the inside of them. And I started really enjoying playing with the architecture. And I'm like, okay, how can I make, you know, those buildings and, you know, comes to life. So here that's the Opéra Garnier in Paris, our most famous opera. And at night I would project in it and I would project videos of ballet, and then tens of thousands of people would gather and and watch the ballet inside. And then two months after, I actually decided to open the cave. And so what happened there is that people gathered, and this time we really closed the streets. And it started with one shadow dancer, and you see her shadow and, you know, people come there. It was totally dark. And then she opened the curtain with her shadow. And now slowly dancer appear on the whole facade. But we asked people to bring their front lamp, because if you came with your lamp or with your phone, you could actually light their costumes. And so they would appear on the facade. And with Damien Jalet and Thomas Bangalter, we created this piece that was free to everyone, that was, you know, more than 20,000 people there on the square. And it was a beautiful way to bring those facades alive. Now, an interesting thing is that with art, you can take it anywhere. And so I started thinking, okay, where else haven't we been where art could have an impact? Because I was very interested into can art have an actual impact and can you measure it? So remember the favela that I showed you? We started a school 15 years ago, and of course we saw the impact, but we were like, we can't measure the impact. We saw the change. Even the mayor of Rio was like, this changed so much in that community, but how can you prove it? So we went in a supermarket security prison in California, one of the worst prisons in in the US, it's called Tehachapi. And I met a bunch of prisoners, and they actually selected themselves to be part of, of of the group. And there was from all kind of gangs, from skinheads to different community, and they all had to place together. And that's the craziest part, is that when we gathered them, we wanted to pace the whole yard with their photos, but also with photos of victims from their crime, and also with photos of guards and the beautiful thing there. And you can see people from all kinds of gangs and all kinds of, you know, generation and path of life gathering there in the, in the yard is that literally everybody came together to do this not knowing, you know, if anyone would ever seen it, because this was on the ground of the supermarket security. And so after we pasted, we tried to involve the guards in it. And when the guards came, those guys told me, you don't understand. We never had such proximity with the guards. This is level for the guards. Don't come down in the yard. So one of the beautiful things before we finish the project is that in that kind of, energy of just bringing people together, there was a beautiful thing where I could suddenly bring everybody in a circle and people would hold each other on the shoulder. It sounds like a very trivial thing, but in a supermax security prison, that doesn't exist. And then when we finally revealed the image, this is what you see from above, and it looks like this depth and, you can see it from closer here. And we created an app that's called murals. And you can click on every single person, and you would hear the audio and there's no time limit. Some of them speak for 30 minutes, some for 40 minutes. And we shared it for free. And and what was very interesting is that the guards started listening to the stories of the inmates, and even if they were guarding them for ten, 15 years, they had never even heard their stories. And so they started to be so much back and forth between the outside, the inside, and what happened now, we've been studying this project inside the facility for five years, is that more than 60% of this group have been freed. We had got everybody moved to level three, two and then one. It had created such a change. So many art programs have started. We started a school there literally last month with our nonprofit Cannot Change the World, and it was really the first time that we got real data on how actually art can impact a place that was already there. This prison was there for 30 years, and nothing had ever changed. So by doing the experiment, we could literally see the change. This is, the mountains behind that I pasted on the wall so that the wall disappeared and, you know, some of them try to escape sometimes by jumping on the image. I thought it was pretty funny. We came there and we did quite a few walks there. This is one of the main building. It was pretty amazing that they led us to the prison as a canvas. And then we came with one of, you know, my favorite tool is it's a photo booth truck, and you can take your photo and it will print it right away. And we started pasting the whole facade. And this project is very dear to me because not only we've done it there, but we've actually made it open to people and we've done it around the world. And it's very simple. You come in and take your photo, print it, and then people can paste it. So this is something we really use in so many places and not only in the prison, but this is in India, this is in Afghanistan. And all of those places. You have to understand that I'm not the one pasting it. The community does it. It's a way to empower the community. So every day we have people sending us their photo. We print it for them and ship it back to them for free wherever they are in the world. And so this is a project that anyone can be part of. And I'm always amazed to see the community in all those places that want to be part of it. But I'm not. I might not have seen them. I might not be able to go to all those places. And so to give away my art so that people can actually do it by themselves is an amazing thing, because often it gives you a thermometer on the wall, you know, it gives you a sense of what's going on, what rights people are fighting for. And of course, those trucks are traveling around the world. So remember Brazil, that's the school that we have there. And it's a small school, but we take care of hundreds of kids. And it's been 50 years now, 15 years now. So, you know, we had kids that were five years old and they're 20 now. And so it's pretty amazing to see the continuity of the art. And even if now on the favela, you know, all the art is gone, but the memory of it is still there. And people knew that at one point all of the hill was covered with faces, and that the continuity of that now is those classes. Is other artists coming. There was even a moment where I'm like, how can I bring attention to this school? It's so hard to bring teachers or artists into this favela because it's still a non pacified favela. So one day we decided to build a moon in the sky of Rio and we literally built it. And this is what it looks like. And you can see it now. It's, you know, it's as high as the Corcovado and you see it from all over the city. And if people want to go see the moon, which is a bedroom inside, they have to come and give a class to the kids. And that's really, you know, a different way of, you know, showing that the moon belongs to the to the people, to the community. Since then, that's the inside of the moon. Since then, we had, like, Lewis Hamilton came and and did race driving with the kids. We had singers. We had all kinds of artists who each time they go to Rio, they're like, how do we get to the moon? 40 years ago, there was this amazing project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who are very dear to me in my mind, as artists that had inspired me because they were also like me, were creating projects without using direct sponsors, you know, and you would go see their art and the sales of their artworks would finance their aunt. And they've done that 40 years ago. And I remember as I started when I was I didn't went to art school, so I didn't know much about art, but that was one of the first names that I got to hear a lot because of the philosophy behind it, because to me, it's very important. All the artworks I showed you were not powered by this brand or that brand. It is, you know, the stories of the people coming straight to you. And I'm just the messenger. So for the 40 years anniversary, this is my next project that's going to come next June. So if you're in Paris, I'm going this is the drawing. But you got to imagine that it's going to be pretty real. We're going to basically build for real above the Pont Neuf in Paris and wrapped it in such a different way. And I'll go 15m above the bridge, so you'll have this incredible stone formation above the bridge. And the beautiful thing about this is you'll be able to enter this rock formation, and it will create the largest immersive artwork in the world. And I think that's an amazing way to bring people together. And almost to go back to the origins, you know, and where we all come from. And there was this amazing studies that I've made over the years as I was opening facades that I just showed you as I was walking into those wounds of the city, and for people to actually literally enter the cave is something that I'm very excited about. So see you in June in Paris. I hope you can come. Thank you. So we have some more time for questions. So I'm all ears.
Hi. Hi. Thank you for the talk.
Of course.
I guess I'm just wondering how, like, what your creative process is when you're selecting a project to do, because it seems like you've been all over and there's some common themes, but I'm just wondering, like when you have nothing, when your schedule opens up, like, how do you pick the next project?
Well, the funny thing is that schedules never really opens up because we're always passionate into working into projects. Now, you know, for example, if we're looking here at the border of Mexico, we've talked about it for a while, but at some point I was thinking about it with the fact that I can't paste on it, and my mind was almost like, oh no, I can't do nothing there because I cannot paste. And when I started to realize, oh wait, I can actually do way different ways of bringing images. I don't need to have a physical wall. And so then I started relooking at everything and being like, oh, wait, wait, wait, now we can do this, let's go. And so that's often the way when I discover a new technique, you know, I feel like really, since I started, I'm on that exact same journey in the same direction, the same path. Nothing has changed except the form, the way it involves people, the way it gathers community. But the DNA is still the process of bringing people together. We think of projects that all of the projects I just showed you are just each of them. They are really imagined in a way that they need to bring as many people together, because the art is that connection between the people. So it really is, random. Depending of conversation, research, my travels, sometimes the fact that I don't have the idea and I'm like, I just don't know how to approach it. And then one day it hits me and I'm okay with that. I surrender to the process.
Thank you. Thank you for your thank you for your talk. I, I knew you as an artist that worked with photography on walls. And now after listening to you speak, actually, you're all about, as you mentioned, collaboration. And it's the art that brings the creative process, the creativity to people. And I wonder, is there a way to bring people together without the art? Or does art have to be, does art have to be a tangible thing?
Well, you know, I think, often people I remember when we did the work in Italy that I showed you with the five children, people came there for the performance. They didn't exactly know what they were holding. And when they were there, they were like, oh, wait, I'm holding this child. Where is he from? There's often like, the excuse to gather an art is such this amazing excuse. And then when people are there, the process of it, the fact that we're walking, that suddenly something's going to happen, you know, glued people together. And so to me, that's the only way I know how to do it in such scale is that to think, okay, there are a lot of people who want to participate in something, and art is such a way to bring people. Now where and how defines all the parameters and the message behind it. And that's why from the financing to where you gather the people to what is the message behind the image is so important. And it's one line to me. Yes.
Merci beaucoup. Thank you so much. Incredible presentation.
Thank you.
You've been to so many amazing places in this world. And I'm just curious, where in the world is left for you to explore?
I don't, I don't know, there's so many places I haven't been to, the I. You know, I'm still so curious about traveling in, you know, and that's what I do all year. So sometimes I'm like, you know, I'm waiting for the next one to come to actually discover my places. But I feel, you know, I haven't covered so many ground. And sometimes just being able to reimagine something crazy in my own city, I'm like, oh, wow. You know, I thought I had nothing else to do in my own city. And suddenly I can I can imagine something big and involve my community. So it's interesting. Often also, I like to go back in the same community over decades. And so that's been the case with so many of the places I've shown you and going back. So a lot of my year is also takes time in this. Like I'll go next month to Brazil to open the second part of the school. Then, you know, we'll go back into the projects outside Paris or like all those places I keep going back in the prison. I'll go also in February. It's it's interesting because you really then see the continuity, the impact. And, and I think sometimes I need that to understand how it actually impacts people. And if not, when you leave and you don't come back, you can only hear stories, but like to really see it with your own eye. Give me and my team the motivation to continue and to go further.
Thank you for this presentation. Very happy to meet you because I follow the cave on social media. For me, it was such an amazing project that you have put together. Thank you. I wanted to know how do you get the support? How do you convince visit private public initiative? How do you get all this support to to do your art?
Yes, it's a good question. First of all, I sell my art and I sell prints online. That and all of it goes back into the main pot. But that's not enough to finance everything. For example, for there's two ways there's financing the work. So the actual projects like this bridge in Paris. I'm not asking city, help the city give me the permits, but I don't want the taxpayer money to go in there. So I raise money through different people, but I don't want any logos attached. So, you know, there are different philanthropy that participate. There are people who privatize it to do a dinner. We find ways. So it's not direct communication. Many big brands come and say, okay, we'll pay for the whole thing, but they want it to be attached to the message. So that's what I really protect my art from. And then we have our nonprofit cannot change the world. And it's interesting because, you know, we have so many more initiatives. We have a mission style restaurant in Paris for homeless and refugees only so that it's totally free. We have the school, we have the prison project. We send posters to people, but it's hard to raise money. We really struggle every year to raise money because people don't necessarily associate art. You know, if I was just raising for the restaurant, for example, people say, oh, yeah, we're feeding people. We'll give you money. But, you know, changing perspective and and it's always a bit harder. It's like one step further. But I think this is the core of what we do. And we've seen the impact. So the prison project have helped us shown with real data how it actually impact. So every year a budget is pretty small, but we always struggle to to raise it because people, you know, don't necessarily see, you know, how art could do such impact. And so it's my mission to, to change that. Thank you. Well thank you. One last question. Yeah.
Hi. Well done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Maintaining art in the public space. It's incredibly important. So thank you for that. Can I just ask how you decide how to maintain your works and if you have to maintain them? So they're exposed to the elements, and I'm sure with time they degrade. Yeah. So what do you do about this problem?
Yeah. I mean, it's not a problem actually. It's part of it. So, when I decide to do it in paper, it's usually ephemeral. And I take it in consideration from the beginning. And often, you know, the reason why it's possible to do it is because people say, wait, wait, wait, are you going to leave that forever? And you say, no, it's ephemeral. Okay, sure. Do it. Then when it's there, people say, oh wait, I wish we could keep it longer, but it's okay because I don't want to impose something necessarily on everyone. I like the idea that it's there, people come see it and then at some point it's gone. But even if it's gone, you still think about it. You still like you go in that favela. Now, all of those kids we have in the school have never seen it with their own eyes. But they all know the legend that one day the whole hill was covered with eyes of their mother, of their grandmother. And so, this have a tremendous impact. The bridge that you see behind me is going to be there only for three weeks. But you know, the way that people for a moment will realize, oh, wow, this is possible in the middle of one of the oldest cities in the world to have, you know, like such a piece of art that redefines architecture for a moment and then disappear? It's something that I, I include in the process of the making. And then, of course, we always think about how to make it sustainable and how everything that we use, every material can be reusable or recycled. And so even for the bridge here, all of the fabric and even the structure will be made out of air. So it's literally when you think of like how to have the less impact of building this. Those are new techniques that I'm, I'm working on that I've never done before. Thank you.
Thank you.