Before I Die is a global participatory public art project that reimagines how the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and meaning as a community. Created by Candy Chang in New Orleans after the death of a loved one, this project invites people to reflect and share their personal aspirations in public. “The City Speaks – and Artist Candy Chang Finds Fresh Ways to Listen,” by Greg Hanscom, December 2011. O, The Oprah Magazine. “Community Builder: How Candy Chang’s Public Art Projects Are Changing Communities Everywhere,” by Jessica Sivester, September 2011 issue, pp. 60. The Atlantic. Candy Chang’s work has been exhibited in museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, SFMOMA, New Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.
Candy Chang’s work has been exhibited in museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, SFMOMA, New Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. The gamut of humanity was on display, and the wall became an honest mess of longing, fear, insecurity, gratitude, humor, pain, and grace. I saw I was not alone as I tried to make sense of my life, and the wall became an ice-breaker for conversations about death and emotional health. “Candy Chang's art serves as a wake-up call in our fast-paced digital age. Armed with little more than chalk, labels or post-it notes, she transforms nondescript urban spaces into compelling works that inspire the often device-obsessed masses to engage with. The Nightly News Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, 2023 The American School in London, London, England, 2022 After the End Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn, New York 2021 Before I Die New Orleans, Louisiana and worldwide 2011 – Present Light the BarricadesAnnenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, California, 2019 Mint Museum,. Candy Chang’s stickers were a question and statement both, transforming boarded-up windows and weathered siding into spaces where people shared their dreams about what could be. It was a simple kind of speculative futures approach, an invitation to ask, ‘What if?’ and ‘Why not?'” —Speculative Futures by Johanna Hoffman
“Candy Chang's art serves as a wake-up call in our fast-paced digital age. Armed with little more than chalk, labels or post-it notes, she transforms nondescript urban spaces into compelling works that inspire the often device-obsessed masses to engage with. The Nightly News Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, 2023 The American School in London, London, England, 2022 After the End Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn, New York 2021 Before I Die New Orleans, Louisiana and worldwide 2011 – Present Light the BarricadesAnnenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, California, 2019 Mint Museum,. Candy Chang’s stickers were a question and statement both, transforming boarded-up windows and weathered siding into spaces where people shared their dreams about what could be. It was a simple kind of speculative futures approach, an invitation to ask, ‘What if?’ and ‘Why not?'” —Speculative Futures by Johanna Hoffman Confessions is a participatory installation that explores public rituals for catharsis and consolation. Informed by Japanese Shinto shrine prayer walls and the practices of Catholicism, Chang invited passersby to write a confession on a wooden plaque in the privacy of confession booths. The plaques were then hung on the gallery