Before I Die

Before I Die is a global participatory public art project that reimagines our relationship with death and with one another in the public realm. Originally created by artist Candy Chang in New Orleans after the death of a loved one, the artwork invites people to reflect and share their personal aspirations in public.

Through the activation of public spaces around the world, Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang creates rituals that uncover the complexity of our inner lives. Her practice includes participatory installations of anonymous, handwritten reflections, as well as reproductions of these reflections through video and mixed media. 

After the death of a loved one in 2011, Chang painted an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood with chalkboard paint and stenciled the prompt “Before I die, I want to." By the next day, neighbors had filled the wall with responses.

As submissions continued to pour in and news of the project spread, Chang used online resources to enable communities in 75 countries to create their own versions. The result was a global phenomenon that The Atlantic called "one of the most creative community projects ever."

Chang’s 2012 TED talk about Before I Die has been viewed over five million times and translated into over 40 languages.

The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever,” and after receiving requests from people around the world who wanted to make a wall with their community, Chang made online resources for residents to create their own.

Through the activation of public spaces around the world, Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang creates rituals that uncover the complexity of our inner lives. Her practice includes participatory installations of anonymous, handwritten reflections, as well as reproductions of these reflections through video and mixed media. She is interested in the future of ritual in public life and the aesthetics of the handwritten word. She is the caretaker of over one million handwritten anxieties, hopes, pains, and moments of grace in the 21st century.

She is most known for her 2011 participatory public artwork Before I Die, which reimagines how the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and meaning as a community today.

Trained in architecture, design, and urban planning, she originally created participatory art to reflect with neighbors on their neighborhood. After struggling with grief and depression, she used this medium to reflect on their psyches. She has created a monument of over 50,000 anxieties and hopes, transformed a building into a device for philosophical reflection, and created electrified shrines on emotional barriers. She has worked with organizations, including Mural Arts Philadelphia, the Art Production Fund, the Rubin Museum of Art, and the Annenberg Foundation. She often collaborates with James A. Reeves, and their work can be found at Ritual Fields.

She is a TED Senior Fellow, Urban Innovation Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She is a recipient of the Tony Goldman Visionary Artist Award and was named a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by Oprah Magazine, as well as one of the Top 100 Leaders in Public Interest Design. Her work has been exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is currently based in New York City.

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