Parisist was very happy when we ran into this story on IHT about these huge street art pieces, because we've seen them all over Paris this year...

The images are by 25-year-old French photograher "JR," who teamed up with documentary maker Ladj Ly to help "recruit subjects at a housing project north of Paris in Clichy-sous-Bois" for his photos. Through street art, they are hoping to confront Paris with its stereotypes. "His giant photos ask passers-by an in-your-face question: When you see a kid from the housing projects, do you see a bogeyman?"

He tells AP:

"After the riots, Parisians viewed suburban kids as extraterrestrials," said JR in an interview in his Paris studio. "On television, you always saw them wearing masks. People said, 'those kids are all the same, everybody who comes from those areas took part in the riots.' Everybody was afraid of them.

"And so I decided to take pictures of them looking like monsters or extraterrestrials," he said. It was a way to jolt people into a realization of their own distorted attitudes toward suburban youths.

JR didn't grow up in the projects. He says he can't speak for the teenagers and young adults who appear in his photographs, also published this month in a book, "28 millimetres," named after the lens he used to shoot the portraits. He wants his photographs to speak for themselves.

The article continues to account how JR's paste-ups were invited to show outside Paris' European House of Photography, and helped to inspire the group show Clichy Sans Cliché, which features 12 well-known photographers' images of the neighborhood. More on that exhibit from an 14 Oct article here [fr].

But back to JR and Ladj Ly: they have not only been getting their message out through street art, but they've also made a five and a half minute, must-watch video on the project. You can see it here, courtesy of 28 millimetres:

Top photo in the 11ème by rion.nu.
Inset photo in Clichy-Sous-Bois by Christophe Ena/AP.