The life that led to Kaiyue’s Wrinkles
Children starting out on their own journey can read the life stories of their elders in JR’s charming new book
Wrinkles, French artist JR’s first children’s book, is a wonderful way to bring young readers face-to-face with senior citizens. The images in the book were taken for JR’s international art project, Wrinkles in the City, which saw him photograph some of the older residents of different cities around the world, including Shanghai, Istanbul, Havana, Berlin and Los Angeles.
These portraits were then enlarged and pasted up in those cities, to show the faces of people who had witnessed, first-hand, how these urban centres have changed.
You can read some of those histories in the lines on their faces. Our new book however, also reproduces their life story in simple terms. Here’s the tale of one Chinese octogenarian.
“My name is Jin Kaiyue. I am 86 and I was born in Shanghai, China. I have two daughters. One of them is 50 years old and lives on the same street as me. She is a doctor. I retired 20 years ago. I used to work on boats as an engineer, repairing machines.”
For more child-friendly stories of life and longevity order a copy of Wrinkles by JR here.