Before I Die, Brooklyn, Photo by Shake Shack

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.

Dreamy lights, dreamy macaroni, dreamy times… We partnered with St Claude Main Street and Press Street to organize a pop-up night market in a vacant lot on St Claude Avenue in New Orleans. My macaroni experiences hit new highs thanks to Cashew Cheesus, and hundreds of people came out to eat, drink, buy, and sell. They also shared their ideas for what they want on St Claude Avenue on a giant fill-in-the-blank sign we made for the event. See what people want and share your ideas too! The night market was so popular we’re trying to figure out how to make it a regular thing. More about the making of the event from Alan and the aftermath from James.

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 bursting with personality (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 project 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.

A glimpse of 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.

The construction is scheduled to end around November 29th, so enjoy it while you can – and send us photos! 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 humanize those blank blue walls and turn them 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 caught up in the day-to-day and forget what really matters to you. With help from friends and neighbors, 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 an interactive public art project that invites people to share their hopes and dreams in public space. Painted with chalkboard paint and stenciled with the sentence “Before I die I want to _______”, the wall became an enlightening way to get to know your neighbors and discover the hopes and aspirations of the people around you. It’s about improving our physical spaces and our personal well-being. It’s a question that changed Candy after she lost someone she loved very much, and she believes the design of our public spaces can better reflect what matters to us as a community and as individuals.

The responses have ranged from the funny and creative to the thoughtful and heartbreaking: Before I die I want to… sing for millions, see my daughter graduate, eat a salad with an alien, see the leaves change many times, be someone’s cavalry, straddle the International Date Line, cook a souffle, hold her one more time, make it in the hip hop, help numerous children, see what I’m like as an old man, tell my mother I love her, make peace with Ohio, abandon all insecurities, be completely myself, evaporate into the light…  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 Before I Die Toolkit to help you create a wall with your community! Thanks to your passion, this wall is turning into a global participatory art project and expanding to cities around the world, including Amsterdam, Portsmouth, Querétaro, Almaty, San Diego, Lisbon, Brooklyn, and beyond – see other walls on the project site! 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. We are currently developing a new website to provide more resources and help people showcase their walls around the world – stay tuned! The project is growing every day and together we can make public spaces that encourage us to reflect and, through our collective wisdom, help us lead better lives.

2011, 41′ x 8′, Chalkboard paint, stencils, spray paint. 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, and beyond - see other walls on the project site!

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.

As part of Turku, Finland’s 2011 European Capital of Culture events, Candy was commissioned to create a public art project near the University of Turku. There is a pedestrian/bike path nicknamed Uraputki, or “Career Path”, because it is a popular route that students take from their residences to the university, to get a degree to get a job. To remind students of the larger picture, Candy turned the path into an interactive space with fill-in-the-blank sentences stenciled on the pavement that say “When I was little I wanted to be ____. Today I want to be ____.” in Finnish, Swedish, and English. Passersby can use colored chalk to write directly on the pavement and reflect upon their larger life choices. Sun and rain erase the responses and the installation starts again. The project is created with temporary spray chalk and will fade with weather and foot traffic.

This project is about comparing yourself today and when you were young, reflecting on how you’ve changed or stayed the same, and thinking about the desires you had as a child. What made you come alive as a kid and why? How can this help inform the decisions you make today? Some favorites: “When I was little I wanted to be a princess. Today I want to be an electrician.” “When I was little I wanted to be a bird. Today I want to be a speech therapist.” “When I was little I wanted to be a grown-up. Today I want to be a kid.” This project is also about learning from the people around us and humanizing our neglected spaces. This industrial path was a drab place for people to pass through as quickly as possible. Now it’s a space to pause, reflect, and share with others.

2011, Stencils and temporary spray chalk, Underpass, 250′ x 8′. Turku, Finland, Commissioned by Turku European Capital of Culture. Lighting design by Anni Hapuoja. Installation assistance by Pete Koivunen, Anni Hapuoja. Studio assistance by Kristina Kassem. Project coordination by Tonja Goldblatt of Flux Aura and Suvi Aarnio of Artist as Neighbor with support from Turku European Capital of Culture.

“When I was little I wanted to be a minister. Today I want to be a rock god.”

“When I was little I wanted to be a paleontologist. Today I want to be happy.” “When I was little I wanted to be kind. Today I want to be an air hostess.” “When I was little I wanted to be a truck driver. Today I want to be ??”

“”When I was little I wanted to be a cowboy. Today I want to be a designer.” “When I was little I wanted to be a secret agent. Today I want to be a psychologist.” “When I was little I wanted to be a teacher. Today I want to be a teacher.”

Photos of the installation process:

 Valparaiso, Chile

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

What if we could easily share ideas for what we want in our neighborhoods? This is the question that drove Dan Parham, Tee Parham, and Candy to create Neighborland, an online tool for people to shape the development of their neighborhoods. It takes her I Wish This Was public art project a few steps further to help people voice what they want in their neighborhoods and take next steps to make things happen. It connects residents who want things with likeminded people, resources, and knowledge. It’s a valuable poll for civic leaders and developers 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 to open.

Neighborland has been a big team effort with integral development by James Reeves, Alan Williams, and Chris Palmatier. Thanks to generous support from the Urban Innovation Fellowship from Tulane University and the Rockefeller Foundation, they 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.

Visit Neighborland.com.

After the pop-up night market, Bywater, New Orleans

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

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

Lafitte Corridor, New Orleans

We biked through big hot piles of shields and metal. She showed us where traffic lights go to die. James says it best.

Goats, ballerinas, bananas, and kings! We all marched the streets to the misfit drum and turned our neighborhood into a Fellini film.

Santiago

He’s the guy selling fifteen hair brushes on a blue towel on Avenida Providencia.

John Hunter, teacher and great human being, TED 2011

“I am a continuation of her gesture.” – John Hunter

“I looked at her face and looked so deeply that I felt I was behind her eyes and all at once I found myself saying, as tears flowed, ‘That’s Me. That’s Me!’ And those simple words brought back many thoughts that I had had before, about the fusion of our souls into one higher-level entity, about the fact that at the core of both our souls lay our identical hopes and dreams for our children, about the notion that those hopes were not separate or distinct hopes but were just one hope, one clear thing that defined us both, that wielded us into a unit, the kind of unit I had but dimly imagined before being married and having children. I realized that though Carol had died, that core piece of her had not died at all, but that it had lived on very determinedly in my brain.” – Douglas Hofstadter, I Am A Strange Loop, quoted by David Brooks

Things have blown up in my little corner of the world thanks to kind features from TYPO Magazine, Wired,  Tulane University, Brain Pickings, Post Secret, Design Obeserver, NOLA Defender, StumbleUpon, the Twitters, and many others. I’ve received several thousand emails (!) in the last few weeks and I’ve got a number of projects-in-progress (including upcoming public art projects in Alaska and Finland), so I’m currently trying to figure out how to make many good things happen…

I WISH THIS WAS vinyl stickers are now available for purchase online! Check out the new project site and buy them here. We ship worldwide and accept Paypal and all major credit cards through our secure online checkout process. These vinyl stickers will ensure that future business owners can remove them without leaving a mark (vs. the gnarly residue of DIY paper stickers). Since May 2011, I’ve returned to the original stickers I began with, so they are fade-resistent high-gloss with a back slit for easy peeling on-the-go. Spread the love to your neighborhood and beyond! And let us know what you do with them. All proceeds will greatly help me to keep on keepin’ on and make more neighborhood projects in public space.

Emeka Okafor, Marvin Hall, and me at TED Global 2009

I feel very lucky to be a TED 2011 Senior Fellow, which means more TLC from the TED family and the privilege of attending four more conferences over the next two years. It begins in a few days when I’m headed to TED 2011 to join the giant ice cream social, give a talk about I Wish This Was, and soak in inspiration from all shades of life and love. Thanks to the program, which you can apply to right here, I’ve met a lot of remarkable people, particularly the fellows. Staying in touch with excited people in science, music, engineering, filmmaking, activism and beyond is an enlightening window and good reminder of how much we often, or can, overlap. The one and only Cesar Harada and I currently live a few blocks away from each other and share everything from coconut cupcakes to giant helium balloon-making tips. Support his oil-eating robots on Kickstarter today!

The kind of night where a stimulating new city falls into soft focus compared to reuniting with old friends. Stray dogs follow us down big mellow sidewalks.

I’m so happy to be selected as an Urban Innovation Challenge Fellow by Tulane University and the Rockefeller Foundation! The fellowship supports ideas to solve social challenges in areas of urban revitalization, public education, health, and economic development with a $45,000 stipend and generous support from Tulane University for the next year. With a mentorship from the great people at Tulane City Center, my colleagues and I will develop Neighborland which, in a nutshell, is the digital version of I Wish This Was and will help people shape future businesses and beyond in their neighborhoods. Neighborland is also very much a group effort with Head of Product Dan Parham, Chief Engineer Tee Parham, and vital help from James Reeves, Chris Palmatier, Alan Williams, and others. Years ago we played minimal techno in sweaty clubs; today we’re making a startup in sweaty neighborhoods. To an exciting year collaborating with residents, community organizations, small businesses, local government, and many other passionate people in New Orleans and beyond to help make our neighborhoods more ours. Thank you Stephanie Barksdale for leading this new annual fellowship.

Photos by Subtext Projects

If you’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area, I hope you might contribute to my newest project in progress, which is featured in Subtext Projects’ FREERIDING show at East/West Galleries. I transformed a wall of the gallery into a giant chalkboard stenciled with the phrase, “Before I die I want to _____.” People can use chalk to write on the wall and remember what is important to them. This project is also about sharing and discovering the hopes and aspirations of the people around you. In addition to the gallery show, Before I Die is being installed on neglected buildings in New Orleans in hopes of improving both our physical environment and our individual well-being while understanding our neighbors in a different and enlightening way. More to come.

FREERIDING features works about exchange, and each piece reflects an act of giving or taking. The exhibit is open until February 10th, 2011. Thank you Subtext Projects curator Leslie Murrell for the kind invitation and gallery director Vance Wingate for the generous installation assistance. Before I Die will continue to expand in public spaces and through individual limited edition pieces in the coming weeks. Life is short. What is important to you?

I’m honored to be invited by the Alaska Design Forum to be a part of Common Space, a program that explores ideas of shared space and community engagement. It includes a symposium, an exhibit, and design labs in five Alaskan cities with an artist/designer working on-site in each location. I will be doing what I love most – developing an interactive public art project with the good people of Fairbanks in April 2011. They also sent me a package with curling shoes, firewood, a hose clamp, and a .22 caliber shell box. Someone’s got a new look for the Spring…

It’s Good To Be Here, stenciled with temporary spray chalk, at The Orange Couch

Sexy and smart, I dig it. From I Wish This Was, New Orleans.

Public art by Jetsonorama in the deserts of Arizona

“We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.” – Barack Obama, speaking in Tucson