it's always inspiring to me to see how art and design projects are born. ultimately, most of them come from someone seeing something a certain way, in a different context, and wanting to share that point of view. while visiting the louvre, artist and filmmaker julien de casabianca did just that. he saw alittlesomethingspecial. he was struck by a painting of a woman that was placed randomly in the corner, a woman in a prison. and then he saw something: what if he freed her? what if, literally and metaphorically, he set her free by re-creating her image outside of the museum, on the street?
and the outings project was born.
the project has "freed" similar works of art in at least 18 cities - sharing anonymous characters in famous paintings with people in london, rome, barcelona, and others.
i really love the idea that changing the context of these pieces could so drastically change their meaning. and i love the idea that people on the street won't take the piece in as they would had they seen it in a museum. maybe it strikes them more because it's unexpected. maybe they don't even see it because they're in the hustle and bustle of their day and not in the quiet introspection of a museum. either way, this project is a beautiful reflection on how context defines meaning.
via swiss miss