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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2007

  • Work on this object began.

2009

  • Work on this object ended.

2016

2025

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28 Millimetres: Women Are Heroes

This is a Project. It was created by JR. It is dated 2007–09. Its medium is photographic reproductions on vinyl, ink, paper.

In informal settlements, women are often central community members, yet remain the most invisible. Self-described “photograffeur” and “urban activist” JR draws attention to these women in with his Women Are Heroes series capturing extreme close-ups of women’s faces and covering informal settlements with large-scale reproductions of the images. In Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, images of women’s faces and eyes cover corrugated metal rooftops, and in the Morro da Providência favela of Rio de Janeiro women’s portraits are pasted onto the sides of houses and public stairways, portraying them as large, central figures in their communities.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/420778889/ |title=28 Millimetres: Women Are Heroes |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=10 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>