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Johannesburg. Photo from Facebook.com/BeforeIDieSA

As new Before I Die walls go up in Johannesburg, South Africa (thanks to Steven Slotow and the Urban Arts Festival) and Savannah, Georgia (thanks to SeeSAW), we’re working hard on a book about the project that will feature walls around the world and deeper insights into our hopes and dreams across the globe. It will be published by St Martin’s Press in 2013 and we would love to include your story. Have you made a wall or remix and haven’t spoken with us yet? Please get in touch! Have you written on a wall? Tell us about it! Open until May 15.

Sparks in New Orleans can turn into flames. A year and a half ago I started putting I Wish This Was stickers on vacant storefronts around NOLA. Thanks to Tulane University’s Urban Innovation Fellowship, we pushed that idea further and launched Neighborland in New Orleans in the summer of 2011. Since then we’ve been working with local residents, community groups, civic leaders, and others to test it, develop it, and try many things out. And now we’re growing thanks to great new partners, including The Obvious Corporation, True Ventures, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, Crunchfund, and Voodoo Ventures! More about it in our Neighborland handbook.

Louis Armstrong Park, New Orleans

My favorite sign in the world. We walked across ponds and followed the music.

CBD, New Orleans

Our various Neighborland experiments in public space continue, including texting ideas for a commercial space in downtown New Orleans.

Video by Yak Films

Before you die, you have to watch this dance video of TweetBoogie in front of the Before I Die wall in Brooklyn! Direct link to Youtube video.

Photos from beforeidiechi.tumblr.com

Before I Die is in Chicago, thanks to the Chicago Urban Arts Society and Good News Only gallery! More on the new project site.

Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles

TED 2012 Conference, Long Beach

Thanks to the TED Senior Fellowship, I am at my fourth TED conference and just installed a Before I Die wall at the event. Photos to come on the new Before I Die site!

New Orleans

I was Rachel as we rolled deep as Blade Runner at Mardi Gras this year. We marched with unicorns, pilots, queens, and pharaohs until we reached the Mississippi River and we worshiped it.

Motel Bianco, Miami

“There was only enough money for one ticket, so one of us would go in, look at the exhibits, and report back to the other. On one such occasion, we went to the relatively new Whitney Museum on the Upper East Side. It was my turn to go in, and I reluctantly entered without him. I no longer remember the exhibit, but I do recall peering through one of the museum’s unique trapezoidal windows, seeing Robert across the street, leaning against a parking meter, smoking a cigarette. He waited for me, and as we headed toward the subway he said, ‘One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.’” – Patti Smith, Just Kids 

Muses parade, New Orleans

Electric floats roll by like steamships in drag. We bike and run and jump and shout for beads beads beads!

Arcosanti, Mayer, Arizona

At Paolo Soleri’s unfinished utopia Arcosanti, I realize I’m attracted to Modernist confidence and terrified of dusty tricycles.

San Miguel, Mexico

In a little gazebo in San Miguel, twenty boys breakdance to Isaac Hayes instrumentals. Cathedral bells ring. Old men polish their shoes.

New Orleans

“Here’s the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It’s not that simple. We’re all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those twenty-four hours. It’s a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

This is the tragedy of life. Because for a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. Moments of clarity, insight, whatever you want to call them. The clouds part, the planets get in a neat little line, and everything becomes obvious. I should quit smoking, maybe, or here’s how I could make a fast million, or such and such is the key to eternal happiness. That’s the miserable truth. For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick.

But then the genius, the savant, has to hand over the controls to the next guy down the pike, most likely the guy who just wants to eat potato chips, and insight and brilliance and salvation are all entrusted to a moron or a hedonist or a narcoleptic.

The only way out of this mess, of course, is to take steps to ensure that you control the idiots that you become. To take your chain gang, hand in hand, and lead them. The best way to do this is with a list.

It’s like a letter you write to yourself. A master plan, drafted by the guy who can see the light, made with steps simple enough for the rest of the idiots to understand. Follow steps one through one hundred. Repeat as necessary.” - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori

Valparaiso, Chile

New Orleans

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts.” - Søren Kierkegaard

Photo by Redjotter

Before I Die is installed at the Southbank Centre in London Jan 19 – 29, 2012 as part of Death: Southbank Centre’s Festival for the Living! And a new project site will be up soon…

Helsinki

Comfort is in the details: brush stands for snowy boots outside of buildings in Helsinki.

Photo by Kristina Kassem

Essays of E.B. White in the 111-year-old Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico in Mexico City. The beginning of a series to document one of my dreams: to hole up and read books in soulful hotels.

“So complete is each neighborhood, and so strong the sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village.” - Here is New York, E.B. White

Santiago

Comfort is in the details: a grip for all in the subway in Santiago.

Installed by Shake Shack, Photos above by Caroline Oh

Enlightening to see my old ‘hood in a new way. Downtown Brooklyn has a hella lot to say on their new Before I Die wall at the corner of Adams Street and the Fulton Street Mall. More below…

Brooklyn, NY. “Eat mad tacos” photo by Victor Hu. All other photos by Belinda Kanpetch.

I used to live just a few blocks from the Fulton Mall so it means a lot to me to see the Before I Die project installed in this area of downtown Brooklyn (my friends made a book all about it). Located at the corner of Adams Street and the Fulton Street Mall, it’s more than twice as long as the original wall in my neighborhood in New Orleans, and it doesn’t take long for the wall to turn into a kind of collective abstract painting bursting with hand-written responses. It’s like I’m seeing my old neighbors in a new way. You walk by so many people every day and most of them remain strangers forever. This helps you see a little bit of the hopes and dreams of the people around you. It’s also a reminder to yourself of why you want to be alive in the world today.

Some responses from the wall: Before I die I want to… eat mad tacos, rally with the Occupy Wall Street movement, get an ‘A’ in math, hold her close, lose this damn weight, publish my book, experience true love, visit Libya, swim around Manhattan, see my Mom free from pain, build a school, clean out the basement, figure out women, get her back (someone else added: then go get her), have a “Huxtable” family, finish the Ironman, go on a cruise, stop smoking, help people be friends, speak English fluently, travel the world, be a gymnastic teacher, be a super hero, be financially stable, be remembered, be a creator not a destroyer, bring peace of mind to my mom.

Thank you to Theresa Mullen and the Shake Shack team for spearheading the installation on their temporary barriers while their storefront has been under construction. They used the Before I Die toolkit to turn those blank blue walls into valuable spaces made for and by the neighborhood. We’re currently working on a new project website that will better feature all the walls worldwide and provide more resources to help you make one with your community. Thank you for all your support for this growing project. Our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as a community and as individuals. By reimagining the ways we use our public spaces, the people around us can not only help us make better neighborhoods but they can also help us live better lives.

Photo by Miriam Vargas

A beautiful plaza in Querétaro, Mexico is home to the newest Before I Die wall. More here.

It was ready to go but from the ashes come more…

Carhenge, Nebraska

“A tear of petrol is in your eye. The hand brake penetrates your thigh. Quick – let’s make love before you die.” – The Normal

Bangalore

“The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we’re alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the submicroscopic moments. He said this more than once, Elster did, in more than one way. His life happened, he said, when he sat staring at a blank wall, thinking about dinner…

He said we do this all the time, all of us, we become ourselves beneath the running thoughts and dim images, wondering idly when we’ll die. This is how we live and think whether we know it or not. These are the unsorted thoughts we have looking out the train window, small dull smears of meditative panic.” – Don DeLillo, Point Omega

Montreal

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Turku, Finland

“If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing.” – Peggy Lee

“Take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.” – Epictetus

Edinburgh, Scotland

“To a greater or lesser extent there goes on in every person a struggle between two forces: the longing for privacy and the urge to go places: the introversion, interest directed within oneself toward one’s own inner life of vigorous thought and fancy; and extroversion, interest directed outward, toward the external world of people and tangible values.” – Vladimir Nabokov

Bywater, New Orleans

Almaty, Kazakhstan

“Spells of acute loneliness are an essential part of travel. Loneliness makes things happen.” – Jonathan Raban

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day and forget what really matters to you. After losing someone she loved very much, Candy turned the side of an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans into a giant chalkboard where residents can write on the wall and remember what is important to them. Before I Die is a public art project that invites people to reflect on their lives and share their personal aspirations in public space. Painted with chalkboard paint and stenciled with the sentence “Before I die I want to _______”, the wall turned a neglected space into a constructive one where we can gain perspective and understand our neighbors in new and enlightening ways. Life is brief and tender, and there is a lot we can learn from the people around us to help us lead better lives.

The project blew up in ways she never expected and people’s hopes and dreams have ranged from the funny to the heartbreaking: Before I die I want to… sing for millions, see my daughter graduate, eat a salad with an alien, straddle the International Date Line, see the leaves change many times, be someone’s cavalry, make it in the hip hop, cook a souffle, hold her one more time, help numerous children, love and be loved, abandon all insecurities, be completely myself…  The project was featured in Oprah Magazine and NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams, and The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever.”

After receiving many requests from people around the world, she and her Civic Center colleagues created a project site and a Before I Die Toolkit. Thanks to passionate people who’ve made walls with their communities, the project has expanded around the world, including Mexico, South Africa, the Netherlands, Portugal, Kazakhstan, and beyond. Taken together, the Before I Die project offers a snapshot of the values our neighbors hold dear. You can also take a piece of the dream home with you with a limited edition painting and submit your dreams on the project site. The project is growing every day and together we can make public spaces that better reflect what is important to us as a community and as individuals. Visit beforeidie.cc for more.

Have you written on a Before I Die wall? Share your story in the upcoming book!

February 2011, 41′ x 8′, Chalkboard paint, stencils, spray paint, chalk. New Orleans, LA. Self-initiated with permission from the property owner, residents of the block, the neighborhood association’s blight committee, the Historic District Landmarks Commission, the Arts Council, and the City Planning Commission. Installation assistance: Kristina Kassem, Alan Williams, Cory Klemmer, Anamaria Vizcaino, James Reeves, Alex Vialou, Sean Knowlton, Carolina Caballero, Earl Carlson, and Gary Hustwit. Concurrently installed in East/West Galleries. With support from the Black Rock Arts Foundation. 

After one day – completely filled out!

Once the wall is filled, we wash the board with water and start with a clean slate again. We are documenting all responses and some will be included in a book.

Update March 16, 2011 – This out-of-pocket project now has a pocket thanks to the Black Rock Arts Foundation!

Update July 6, 2011: Take a piece of the dream home with you with a limited edition painting! More here.

Update Sept 22, 2011: “Our thoughts are to the individual as our art is to the community” More here

Update Sept 22, 2011: Make a wall with your community with the Before I Die toolkit!

Thanks to your passion, this participatory public art project is currently expanding to cities around the world, including Amsterdam, Portsmouth, Querétaro, Almaty, San Diego, Lisbon, Brooklyn, London, and beyond - see other walls on the project site!

Have you written on a Before I Die wall? Share your story in the upcoming book!

Selected press:

“They’re the stuff of everyday life from people of all walks of life… Young or old, rich or poor, the [Before I Die] wall does make you think as you walk by.” —NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams

“Before I Die is merely one of the most creative community projects ever.” —The Atlantic

“Through a series of large-scale projects that combine installation art with social activism, Chang has encouraged people to engage with public spaces to let their voices be heard.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Death can inspire life. Especially in New Orleans, on the corner of Marigny and Burgundy, where the Before I Dieproject has used the specter of urban decay and death to create art and inspire. Using a boarded up house as a canvas, artist Candy Chang transformed a haunting reminder of blight and divestment into a powerful affirmation of human life and imagination.” – Life and Times

“The notion of turning a neglected space into an active invitation to engage with your community and get to know your neighbors is a wonderful embodiment of enlightened urbanism. What’s more, it’s a reminder that not all meaningful social platforms are accessed through a screen — an inspired antidote to the Foursquarification of urban social quasi-interaction.” – Brain Pickings

You have permission to use above photos for publicity about the project. All photos by Civic Center. If you are a publication and would like a press kit with high-res photos, please contact us.

The word on the street: O the Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, Brain Pickings, GOOD, Post Secret, Times Picayune, Wooster Collective, WeTheUrban, Design Milk, Creative Review, Life and Times, HOW, Juxtapoz Magazine, and many more. Read more about the project in an interview with Juxtapoz Magazine.

What if we could easily share and build on ideas for what we want in our communities? This is the question that drove Dan Parham, Tee Parham, and Candy Chang to create Neighborland. It’s a tool that takes Candy’s I Wish This Was public art project a few steps further to help people voice what they want in their area and join forces with others. It connects residents who want things with likeminded people, organizations, knowledge, resources, and initiatives. It’s a valuable poll for civic leaders, urban planners, developers, and business owners to assess what residents want in different places. And it helps reveal neighborhood demands and prove there is a viable customer base for new businesses and services to open.

Neighborland has been a big team effort with integral development by Alan Williams, Chris Palmatier, and James Reeves. Thanks to generous support from the Urban Innovation Fellowship from Tulane University and the Rockefeller Foundation, we launched it in New Orleans in the summer of 2011 and are working closely with local organizations and individuals to improve it, test new features, and help make things happen. To an exciting time collaborating with passionate people so the future of our communities better reflects our desires today. For inquiries, please contact Dan Parham.

Visit Neighborland.com.

At the StayLocal! table at the Poboy Fest. Photos by Malcolm Mansour.

“I see Neighborland as a kind of Internet version of stoop-sitting. And New Orleans has always been a stoop-sitting kind of place, where people gather to chat on porches or front steps or across a wrought-iron fence. By all means, join the conversation. I am. My dog Lucy and I are so on board with that thread about pet-friendly restaurants in the Garden District.” – Times Picayune

 Valparaiso, Chile

“The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.” – Anaïs Nin

Photo above by New Reporter. All other photos by Civic Center.

Thanks to local creatives and the Soros Foundation, I recently gave a talk at the Youth ArtCamp Conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where I enjoyed good times amidst their movie-magic mountains – green in the front and snow-capped in the back! During the conference, the Youth ArtCamp team and I also made three mini Before I Die walls in Russian, Kazakh, and English. They made free-standing chalkboards on the university campus and I brought one-column stencils (a test run for the DIY kit, ready later this summer). Favorite responses include “Before I die I want to create a typeface of my own”, ”Before I Die I want to write a novel about the history of Kazakhstan in English”, and “Before I die I want to save the last romantiс on the planet” (more translations below). Synchronized spray-painting with Aidar Marat and Ruslan Lyan, and thanks to the team for making it happen and showing me their lovely city: Ludmila Tsoy, Alexandra Tsay, Aidar Marat, Ruslan Lyan, Yekaterina Syrtsova, Sholpan Suleimenova, Mikhail Koval, Xeniya Medvedeva, Dastan Myrzabayev, and Abzal Issabekov.

In Russian (translations by Alexandra Tsay):
Before I die I want to learn how to be brave.
Before I die I want to save the last romantiс on the planet.
Before I die I want to drink.
Before I die I want to draw you.
Before I die I want to organize Central Asia Art Union.
Before I die I want to meet God.
Before I die I want to give birth.
Before I die I want to see my great-great-great-granddaughter.
Before I die I want to change the world.
Before I die I want to not die.
Before I die I want to be better.
Before I die I want to give up bad habits.
Before I die I want to see all people being kind.
Before I die I want to know what love is.
Before I die I want to organize 1000 exhibitions.
Before I die I want to make dreams come true.
Before I die I want to be happy.
Before I die I want to live.
Before I die I want to make something really meaningful.
Before I die I want to sit down on the string and visit NY.
Before I die I want to fly.
Before I die I want to see my parents and my boyfriend at the same time. It’s impossible as they live in different cities.
Before I die I want to travel around the world by foot.

In Kazakh (translations by Aidar Marat):
Before I Die I want to receive a title/rank of a “Hero mother”. (a woman who gives birth to more than 4 children)
Before I Die I want to make my parents happy.
Before I Die I want to be happy.
Before I Die I want to change a starter.
Before I Die I want to see Lady Gaga.
Before I Die I want to write a novel about the history of Kazakhstan in English.
Before I Die I want to understand myself.
Before I Die I want to go to Helsinki.
Before I Die I want to make an analogy of wordpress.com in Kazakh.
Before I Die I want to go to Brazil.
Before I Die I want to understand a meaning of another world. (means, life after death)
Before I Die I want to see Aktobe football club as champions.
Before I Die I want to live in Amsterdam and New Orleans.
Before I Die I want to fill this world with kindness and love.
Before I Die I want to make happy at least one human.
Before I Die I want to be on American Idol.

The Youth ArtCamp team

Taipei

“This was taken on July 18, 1968, when I waved goodbye to Father at Songshan Airport to board my very first flight and start my medical internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago. That day, on the way to the airport in a taxi, realizing I did not have a wristwatch, he took his Shiseko off his wrist and gave it to me. At the gate, he held my hand so tight it hurt.” - my Dad, about his father, who just passed away

New Orleans in nine quick and dirty loops while I was riding in the passenger seat down I-10, thanks to the easy, fun, and rewarding new iPhone application +loop created by old friend Stephen Baker for Trollbäck + Company. Get it for free until Friday!

Santiago

Santiago provides a place for every man, woman, and child to sit, pause, and enjoy the city for free, which leads to a chain of other benefits in comfort, safety, and civic engagement. Here’s another place where outdoor seating changes everything.

We’re expanding the Before I Die project in various ways, including a kit (available in July), a book, paintings, and more. For the next installation, we’re seeking an abandoned or forgotten place in the desert that will emphasize the sculptural and contemplative aspects of the wall. We’d like to create a place that will encourage people to hit the brakes while speeding through the Mojave or make a journey into the Sonoran desert to visit a ghost town where civic neglect has been taken to its logical conclusion — and reading the personal hopes and ambitions of strangers might take on a new resonance.

We’d like to hear your suggestions for potential locations throughout the American west. Metropolis, Nevada? Two Guns, Arizona? The Salton Sea? Send us your thoughts and we’ll install the piece this summer — and from the suggestions we receive, we’ll create a map and guide to ghost towns and isolated points of interest throughout the American West. Suggest on the Civic Center site here!

Photo by Anni Hapuoja

Finland’s summer sky keeps on giving as we spray-chalk long and hard amidst trains, highways, and big-ass bunny rabbits. I’m working on a new public art project in charming Turku as part of their European Capital of Culture programs Flux Aura and Artist as Neighbor. See more about the final installation here. And if you’re in Turku, I’m giving a talk about my meandering path towards public art as part of Summer Public Art School at Gallery Titanik on June 13 at 5pm. Mahtavaaaa!

Gave a talk in Kazakhstan at the Youth ArtCamp Conference thanks to local creatives and the Soros Foundation. We also got our spray-painting on, and Almaty is now home to three more mini Before I Die walls in Russian, Kazakh, and English! More soon…

Update – more on the project here.

The original Before I Die wall in my neighborhood in New Orleans is still alive and kicking so do stop by if you’re around. Lots of things in development, including a DIY kit, limited edition paintings, a book, more installations, and a new project site here.

We receive hundreds of messages each day and we try our best to answer them while still continuing to make projects and maintain our own well-being. If you have questions about making a Before I Die wall, please use this form on the project siteand we will keep you posted on project developments. And you can add your dreams online on the project site here. Thank you and we appreciate your support!

At Civic Center we channeled our love for World’s Fairs and A.M. Cassandre and designed this poster & online campaign for the Architectural League’s Urban Omnibus for the Festival of Ideas for the New City. It’s a huge event in New York City May 4-8, 2011 celebrating ways we can shape the future of our cities. The posters will pop up on fences, scaffolds, walls, and other public spaces across NYC to inspire passersby to think about how they can make their city better. See all 50 ideas here with links to further discussion — and add your ideas, too! Art direction by James Reeves with illustrations by Kristina Kassem. You can also purchase them to support Urban Omnibus’ good work.

How can we learn more about the stories behind our buildings? How can they better fulfill our needs today? Candy was commissioned by the Alaska Design Forum to create a public art project on the tallest building in Fairbanks around the theme of common space. The Polaris Building was once an apartment complex, then a hotel, and now it’s been vacant for more than a decade. Looking for Love Again is an interactive public art project that collects residents’ stories and ideas about the vacant Polaris Building. The 11-story high-rise was covered with a giant four-story sign that says “Looking for Love Again” to turn the building into an emotional beacon pleading for love and inviting people to come in for a closer look. Two chalkboards at the street level invite people to share their memories of the building and hopes for its future. See more photos, stories, and ideas on the project website, where you can also contribute directly online.

This project is an experiment – what if we could easily share the stories behind our buildings? What happened here? Who grew up here? How has it played a part in our lives? And what if we had more of a say in what these buildings could become? What if we could easily collect demand in an area? By drawing attention to our neglected spaces, and providing residents with a platform to share, perhaps we can discover the impact that buildings have on our emotional well-being. And maybe we can learn to love them once again.

“Looking For Love Again forces you to examine how the city you live in affects your life, and what you can do to shape a vision of the urban landscape for the better.” – Fast Company

2011, Industrial fabric (68′ x 36′), chalkboards (10′ x 30′), high-rise. Fairbanks, Alaska, Commissioned by The Alaska Design Forum. Project coordination by David Hayden. Project assistance by Mike Hondel. Installation assistance by Bernie Baecker, Carol Hayden, Sean Hering, Kate Incarnato, Galen Lott, Dustin Miller, Jessica Nelson, Amy Nordrum, Ian Oleson, Sheri Oleson, Pat Rivera, Jack Schmid, Trent Schoenemann, Sue Sprinkle, Dave van den Berg, and Jared van deer Weele.

Within this space, themes already emerged. For memories:

Memories of the Tiki Bar on the top floor

Ghost story of room 303

Themes for hopes:

Desire for a grocery store

Desire for an Indian restaurant

Desire for modern apartments downtown

Part of the team. Photo by resident

Photos of the process:

Photo by Carol Hayden

Photo by David Hayden

Photo by resident

All photos by Candy Chang unless credited otherwise. You have permission to use above photos for publicity about this project. See more photos of the process on the project website and on the Alaska Design Forum’s Common Space site. Share your memories and hopes on the chalkboards and online at lookingforloveagain.org!

While one chalkboard comes to an end, a new one rises for a different project. Thanks to the Alaska Design Forum, I’ve been invited to give talks and make a public art project in Alaska. I felt serious love rays in Anchorage amongst local creatives and other invited artists, including the great guys from Rebar. Now I’m in Fairbanks installing a project on the city’s tallest building, which has been abandoned for over a decade. It will all unfold at lookingforloveagain.org. If you’re in Fairbanks, come out to the Blue Loon Tuesday April 12th at 6pm where I’ll give a talk about my work and this project over drinks and good times. And come to the opening Friday April 15th at 5pm at the base of the Polaris Building with a reception to follow at Gambardella’s at 6pm. Big thanks to installation coordinator David Hayden for his incredible task mastering and to many others for their great help along the way. More on the final project here.

Time to evaporate into the light… I knew that the Before I Die project on this house in my neighborhood would come to an end at some point, and I couldn’t ask for a better way. Someone bought the house and, to comply with city regulations on blight, must begin renovations soon. For the record, they are fans of the project and have done everything they can to let it ride before turning the building into a home again after years of collecting dust. So if you’d like to see and share on the wall, I encourage you to come before Sunday April 10th. Its life is tenuous after that. But this isn’t the end. It will rise again in another place in New Orleans. Thank you for all the love for this project! I’m blown away by the responses on the wall and beyond, and the project will continue to expand to other cities and grow for years to come. We are currently working on providing a large one-column stencil that will make it much easier to reproduce. A project site is also in the works where everyone can share their hopes and dreams from all the corners of the world. And I’m very happy that this house will become a home again.

Update May 5, 2011:  The wall still lives! The new owners’ renovations have been delayed. In the meanwhile, we have their permission to continue with the project. So do stop by the corner of Marigny and Burgundy if you’d like to enjoy it in person.

Upate June 29, 2011: The wall is still alive and kicking…

Two Guns, Arizona

“If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it.” – David Foster Wallace

Johannesburg

“That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home… To envision us approaching and pounding on this door, increasingly hard, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it; we don’t know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and ramming and kicking. That, finally, the door opens… and it opens outward – we’ve been inside what we wanted all along.” – David Foster Wallace, Some Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness