Artist Candy Chang has launched a public art project inviting passers by to chalk their own ending to the sentence: "Before I die I want to ..." on a disused building in New Orleans that has been transformed into a giant chalkboard.
"Before I Die" started life as part of an exhibition called Freeriding, by Subtext Projects in a gallery before taking to the streets. Chang selected a large, boarded-up corner building in New Orleans to transform into an enormous blackboard.
She told Wired.co.uk in an e-mail interview: "I bike by this blighted house all the time and I wanted to a nicer spacemake for my neighborhood. The messages you see in public space right now are mostly advertisements.
"If aliens landed today they'd think all we care about are sexy beers and fruity shampoos," Chang said. "I think our public spaces can better reflect what's important to us as residents and as human beings."
She recruited a gang of friends to help her to daub the building in chalkboard paint and then stencil the first part of the phrase over and over again onto each wall. Chalk holders attached to the wall meant that passers by could immediately pick up a piece of chalk to add their own aspirations. Responses ranged from the humorous to the profound, including "be a YouTube sensation", "go 200 mph" and "be completely myself."
Chang explained why that particular phrase resonated with her: "It's a question that has changed me in the last year and has reminded me of what is important to me in my short life. I think it's something everyone should stop and think about, plus it's an enlightening way to get to know your neighbors."
She added that she feels "very passionate about redefining the ways we use public space to share information that's important to our neighborhoods and to our personal well-being. I've worked with outdoor chalkboards and stenciling before, so the combination of the two was pretty natural."
The idea came to Chang last autumn and she went through all of the proper channels to ensure she had permission from the property owner, the residents of the block, the Neighborhood Improvement Association's Blight Committee and later the Historic District Landmarks Commission, the Arts Council and the City Planning Commission.
Chang was "blown away" by the outpouring of responses. The entire wall was filled out within 24 hours. Some of her favorite responses include "Before I die, I want to eat a salad with an alien" and "before I die I want to marry this person," accompanied by an arrow pointing to the last response.
Chang is a 2011 TED Senior Fellow who has had a broad career involving founding a record label, working on community urban-design projects, being an art director at The New York Times, as well as a working as a design researcher at Nokia and an electro DJ.
You can check out some of the responses that have been documented. Chang is currently working on a public installation in Fairbanks, Alaska, in April and one in Turku, Finland, in June.
Photos: Candy Chang
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