Lined with North African small stores and graffiti-covered walls, this neighborhood defies any conventional expectations you might have about France. Its defining feature is La Friche Belle de Mai, an arts center built inside a former tobacco factory. At first glance, it looks like a colorful skatepark—but if you venture further, you’ll find a cafe and bookstore, art exhibitions, and a local market. Nearby, there’s also a one-screen theater, Cinema Le Gyptis. It may be initially hard to identify, but it’s impossible to miss, because it’s covered in black-and-white portraits. They were created by a street artist, JR, who installed a photo booth to capture images of local residents, and then pasted the photographs onto the theatre facade. This large-format street pasting is just one of many pieces that JR created for his “Inside Out” project, a TED-funded initiative that transforms messages of personal identity into works of art.