JR’s Joyful Collaborations with Refugee Communities

In 2017, the French street artist JR staged a giant installation at the US-Mexico border wall, with guests enjoying a meal on either side. Looming above them was the artist’s huge scaffold-hung photograph of a toddler named Kikito, whose home in Tecate overlooks the wall. While he often moves beyond the art world into the realm of celebrity, photographing A-listers at Madonna’s post-Oscars party, JR’s physically ambitious artistic practice is most meaningful when out on location. Since 2022, his ‘Déplacé.e.s’ series has seen him work with refugee populations in Columbia, Greece, Mauritania, Rwanda and Ukraine, producing aerial photographs of large groups holding 36-metre banners of young children. The resulting images feature in his current show, ‘Outposts’, at Perrotin’s new London space. 

Works from the artist’s ‘Children of Ouranos’ series (2022–ongoing), also featured in the exhibition, offer a contemporary take on the primordial Greek god of the sky and father of the Titans. The series comprises photographs of running children, printed in negative onto reclaimed wood. Shown in this way, the young protagonists seem to glow with a bright white light – bringing to mind classical religious paintings, with children illuminated to suggest purity and holiness. 

Also on display is a large-scale video shown across two screens, with footage from the making of the works presented in ‘Outposts’. The video’s sun-dappled aesthetic reinforces the hopeful message of the exhibition, which consistently emphasizes the innocence of children and highlights the potential of so many who are displaced by war. Those living in the refugee camps and cities within which JR has worked are undoubtedly the primary audience for his work; the artist’s involvement, and the subsequent form these pieces take, goes well beyond a simple illustrative point. This is community engagement, with the artistic collaboration JR practices having a therapeutic aspect and bringing authentic enjoyment to those in the camps. 

But, within the gallery space, there is a sense that these works have become somehow containable – presented for the viewer to peruse within the safety of their own bubble, removed from the communities and environments with which JR has engaged. That is, perhaps, another layer of these works’ critique, with JR asking his audience to question their role as distant spectators, standing in a central London gallery. 

The exhibition purposefully presents an image of joy and hope to contrast with the harsh realities that these children have already faced in their lives, eschewing the mass of warzone trauma porn that can end up creating a voyeuristic viewing dynamic. What, however, is the role of hope alone at a time when many in Western countries are already turning their gaze away from the horrific realities of genocide and war? Tens of thousands of children are known to have been murdered by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank since 2023, but open conversation about this is widely repressed. 

I left the exhibition feeling that the context within which these works were produced was a worthy one. JR brings a compelling energy and dynamism to his on-site projects, placing his collaborators centre stage – and these pieces highlight the powerful potential of both the individual children featured and the communities that hold them up. The works’ eventual framing within this exhibition, however, doesn’t do enough to challenge viewers about their own denial or wilful ignorance of the countless children who are displaced, torn apart and murdered, often with the blatant support and involvement of our own governments. It is easy to feel good about being on the side of hope and peace when we don’t see ourselves as enablers of the very destruction we are shown. 

JR’s ‘Outposts’ is on view at Perrotin, London, until 3 May

^{Main image: JR, Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #15 (Children of Ouranos, Wood #15) (detail), 2022, ink on wood, 2.4 × 4.2 cm. Courtesy: © JR and Perrotin, Paris; photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli}