Caracas neighborhood joins worldwide art project

The community of the Petare neighbourhood of Venezuela's capital will soon be the stars of a global photographic art project.

Some 2,000 locals will be featured in black and white portraits that will be displayed on the walls of their district.

Petare is one of the largest low-income settlements in Latin America, a place often associated with violence and armed gangs.

But the "Inside Out" artistic initiative aims to change that.

Inside Out helps global communities create art installations by displaying large-scale portraits of residents in public spaces.

Community leader Katiuska Camargo and photographer Juan Calero are running the Petare project.

The latter explains the initiative will help present the real people of the community to a wider world.

"We will make portrait photography from inside communities around the world, outward, to the world," Calero says.

Inside Out is the brainchild of a French photographer and street artist who is only known by the initials JR.

More than 400,000 people, spanning across 138 countries, have participated in over 2,000 Inside Out projects in the last 10 years.

Camargo and Calero plan to include photos portraits of some 2,000 people in the final display.

To help reach this target, more than 20 photographers have been snapping shots of residents of the San Blas district of Petare.

Camargo is well-known for her hard work in bringing the people of the neighbourhood together, in making the area a better place to live.

Over the last decade, dozens of murals have been painted on the community, along with other art projects involving the young people of San Blas.

With these initiatives, Camargo aims to give a new meaning to being from "barrio" because, as she said she had experienced, it has always been a social stigma for many.