OUIL401: COP Lecture - Print Culture Part 2

The Inside Out Project

Although the digital print process is favoured over traditional print methods for obvious reasons it actually has the capacity to achieve things on a global scale that couldn't be achieved before the post print age.

Inside Out Project is an example of how digital printing can have a positive, global impact.

The process is a democratic way of allowing people around the world tell there stories through print with no commercial or capitalist restraints or influence.

Groups of otherwise oppressed or ignored people in society can quickly and personally dictate the message they want to display to the world using the Inside Out Project as a digital tool.

The Inside Out Project is simply an outlet for their story.

Statement from the Inside Out Website...

'Organized by Morgan State University’s Visual Arts Department, Black Lives Matter is a visual response to the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. Created in 2012 after the murder of Trayvon Martin, the movement “[broadens] the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state.” Our group action aims to shed light on the presence of invisible boundaries and limitations placed on Black people throughout different facets of our lives.'

The detailed, photographic portraits are a powerful way of connecting with the audience that sees them. There is even a communal process of installing the portraits that involves the local community. 

The artist JR who started Inside Out has no say as an artist on what each project is trying to say but his initial idea of creating a democratic outlet using modern digital technology is clever way of creating art on a vast scale with his focus on helping people have their voices heard. 

Save the Arctic - 4000 portraits

Save the Artic shows the printing process being used in the most ambitious and challenging way, displaying the image in extremely hostile environment. It's a defiant statement of intent, challenging the environmental damage being done which is not fully exposed because of the Arctic's remoteness geographically and in the global political discussion.

Be the Change, Juarez

Inside Out allows forgotten or ignored stories of mass suffering such as the Mexican/US border and people's desperation for better lives. The huge displays become part of the landscape and are impossible to ignore. The large scale would never have been possible before the digital age. 

We Still Exist

The portraits and the faces they show asked the audience to think about the often talked about but then forgotten injustices/oppression of tribes/sections of society in a more humane way.

Seeing faces of the real people who are the oppressed forces the audience to question their thoughts and taps into a more global empathy that doesn't come through in other more conceptual art forms.