Not sure if you know about TED or the TED prize (technology education design), but you can catch TED Talks on Hulu Plus. I love it, it’s very interesting and informative. Bringing people from various walks of life to an audience in a semi lecture format to discuss their “wish”, those that win the TED prize have done something that has impacted the world greatly and are awarded a prize along with $100,000 and a chance to fulfill their wish. The wishes deal with something that if given grand resources they would like to see blank happen in the world.
A few weeks ago a French street artist named JR won for his global effort to level the playing field through photography. His “wish” is to use art to change the world. He goes to various countries and posts giant photos on walls, sort of a photography graffiti, the purpose, to make people look up…pay attention…and most importantly ask questions.
One instance is where he wanted to show people of Palestine and Israel that they aren’t so different. For instance he went into Palestine and Israel, took photos of Israelis and took photos of Palestinians…doing the same jobs. So they went into various cities of Palestine and Israel posting a photo of a Palestinian and an Israeli doing the same job (ie two taxi cab drivers, or two cooks) on each wall and asked the people to tell them which was which. Of course they couldn’t. The point being we are all just people, we decide what makes us different and are our differences worth fighting over?
So that’s an example of that he does. The photos create quite a buzz in every city he goes into. And they are great photos, I mean the kind that really get your attention. They did some really cool things with them including posting on a train. Well watch the video to see what I mean.
