Jamestown’s “Inside Out” Art Project Focuses On Everyone’s Individuality

Jamestown High School’s National Art Honor Society members have brought a global art project, “Inside Out,” to their school.  “Inside Out” is a large-scale, worldwide, participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images are made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium or in a school.  The premise of the project, created during an art contest last year, is: “We are a better community, a better world, if we know and see our neighbors as individuals, all special and worthy to be seen and heard. The candid photos challenge widely held preconceptions of what beauty is and who is worthy of awe.”
The students at Jamestown High chose to take and post pictures of representatives of the entire school community: teachers, students, custodians, administrators, cafeteria workers. The students hope that the posters will remind others that while we are all different, we are also all part of the Jamestown High School community. The fact that each poster is the same size and in black and white reminds the onlooker that we are all of equal importance. The artistic goal of the students was to participate in a worldwide art project that ties them to the global community, but at the same time shows the importance of each person in their immediate school community.
“Inside Out” website:  www.insideoutproject.net

Photo Hanging:  Photos taken by Jamestown High School’s National Art Honor Society members are hung in the main hallway at JHS.