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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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?

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

A new stencil for a new public art project coming soon…

Candy worked with Hypothetical Development, a public art project that creates signs depicting fanciful futures for neglected buildings in New Orleans. The renderings, created by different artists, are posted directly onto the buildings they depict. To reference her neighborhood’s need for affordable fresh groceries and to pay homage to Mr. Okra, Candy reimagined a local vacant storefront and created this collage where food trucks turn into fresh produce fountains while friends and lovers sit on giant carrots. No fresh produce, meat, or seafood in your neighborhood? No problem. The Mobile Cornucopia will come to you and provide a never-ending flow of fresh local fare. Take the food truck escalator to food truck heaven, and enjoy the revelries surrounding this daily hub. We’ll have so much produce we can use it as furniture! The army of carrot benches was inspired by one of Candy’s favorite public spaces in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

2010, Industrial print, 36″ x 60″. New Orleans, LA, Exhibited at Beckham’s Book Shop and Du Mois Gallery, 2011. 

Installation photos by Morris Brum

A few entertaining shots from the opening reception of the Ethnographic Terminalia exhibit at Du Mois Gallery. The show featured photographs of I Wish This Was and offered free stickers for people to go buck wild on abandoned buildings and beyond. This time, “beyond” meant themselves and their drinks.

I Wish This Was began in New Orleans in November 2010. It was inspired by vacant storefronts. There are a lot of them where Candy lives in New Orleans. There are also a lot of people who need things, including a full-service grocery store. What if we could easily voice what we want, where we want it? How can we influence the businesses and services in our neighborhoods?

Combining street art and urban planning, Candy created fill-in-the-blank stickers that say “I wish this was ____.” With support from the Ethnographic Terminalia exhibit, she placed boxes of free stickers in businesses around the city and posted grids of blank stickers and a permanent marker on vacant storefronts to invite passersby to write their thoughts. The stickers are vinyl and they can be easily removed without damaging property. Responses ranged from the functional to the poetic: I wish this was… a butcher shop, a community garden, a bike rack, an affordable farmer’s market, an Ethiopian restaurant, a place to sit and talk, Brad Pitt’s house, real soul food, a dancing school, full of nymphomaniacs with PhDs, a source of tasty healthy food I could afford, my art gallery, a bike shop, a taco stand, Heaven. It’s a fun, low-barrier tool to provide civic input onsite, and the responses reflect the hopes, dreams, and colorful imaginations of different neighborhoods.

The project continues on today and has expanded to cities around the world. Stickers are still posted across New Orleans and are available for purchase online. The vinyl material ensures that future business owners can easily remove them, and slitted backs make it easy to peel and apply. To accommodate requests for stickers in other languages, we can also fulfill custom-orders of stickers in any language through our online shop (bulk orders only). A book is in the works – please send us your photos! Thanks to the Urban Innovation Fellowship from Tulane University and the Rockefeller Foundation, Candy and her colleagues are also developing an online tool called Neighborland that takes this idea a few steps further to help people come together and shape the development of their neighborhoods.

Buy I Wish This Was stickers on our online shop!

P.S. A note to those concerned about the subjunctive mood (I wish this was / I wish this were)

2010, Vinyl stickers, 4.5″ x 3″. New Orleans, LA. Exhibited in Ethnographic Terminalia at DuMois Gallery.

The word on the street: GOOD, NOLA Defender, Tulane University New Wave, PSFK, Gambit, Times Picayune, Utah Repro, Agent Genius, Memphis Flyer, Regina Urban Ecology, Minimum Wage Art, Global Montreal, Broken City Lab, We Like That, Guerilla Innovation, 20nine, LaBarge & Partners, The Pop-up City, Juxtapoz Magazine, Tulane University New Wave

Tonight’s project-in-progress. Printing, cutting, folding, and taping to candlelight and cinematic music.

Bywater, New Orleans

I read poignant excerpts from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles on Oliver Blank’s astro-fantastic Kiosk radio show, which aired on Helsinki’s Basso Radio over the weekend. The podcast – Episode 2: Space – is free for download here. His own cinematic album can be found here, and we’re currently collaborating on an EP of his music and my reading of stories, including The Idiotic Building.

“‘It is good to renew one’s wonder,’ said the philosopher. ‘Space travel has again made children of us all.’” - Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, 1950

Washington D.C.

Stockholm

New Orleans

New York City

Helsinki

Istanbul

Turku

Barcelona

Cameron Highlands

Johannesburg

Barcelona

Atami

New York City

Helsinki

Tallinn

Stockholm

Tokyo

Tokyo

Atami

Osaka

Taipei

With a smile the woman invites. With a gaping mouth, a mad brow, a finger point, or a sweaty mix of all three, the men beg you to stay away. And one just wants to show you how meanly he can fly.

New York City

Oxford

Helsinki

Singapore

Johor Bahru

New Orleans

Lima OH

As a complement to Time and Erosion…

Yeliou

Tallinn

Oxford

Istanbul

New Orleans

As a complement to Time and Collection…

New Orleans. Someone’s blowing a trumpet on one corner, someone’s building a mystery space machine on the other, and across the street by a boarded-up building someone’s painting their shotgun house pink and green. NOLA lets you be you. Everyone says hello like you’re old friends, even if you just showed up. Just being here means something. The Marigny and Bywater feel like they were drawn by a five-year-old, in the very best way. Sit on your porch for an hour and you’ll make five new friends and hug the neighborhood cat. Mr. Okra drives by in his fruit truck and we run. A girl on a bike staples a flyer to a pole. I buy my wine at the same place my neighbor is doing his laundry. Friends walk three blocks to get home. A neighborhood association board member shows me a scrap book of every new tree planted. Ask people why they live here and they get emotional. It’s because there was an instant connection. It’s because there’s something about this city. It’s good to be here.

2010 and beyond, 25″ x 10″, Stencils and temporary spray chalk on sidewalk.

The Bargain Center flea market

Bacchanal bar /restaurant / magical big-ass garden with live jazz

Cake Cafe

The Iron Rail anarchist bookstore / lending library / record store

St. Claude Avenue

Schiro’s Cafe and Community Bar restaurant / laundromat / liquor & cookies store

Mardi Gras Zone costume shop / grocery store

The Orange Couch Cafe

Port Arthur, Texas

Drive across America and you’ll see the sweep and carnage of 20th century history: port cities, train cities, Main Street USA, WWII, highways, white flight, urban renewal, car & suburbia enchantment, car & suburbia enchantment backlash… And now every state has cities with old downtowns lined with empty little storefronts for little rent. Dignified buildings wait. Someday they will be loved again.

The Marigny, New Orleans

Mysore, India

New Orleans, 2006

“men and women alive in the world, in all their brave variety, with all their quirks and greatness and folly, surrounded by beauty and harshness, moved by wonder and selfishness and love, aware of splendid ghosts in all their yesterdays, fearful or confident about tomorrow even while they dare, themselves, to shape it.” – The World of Mankind, 1962

Johannesburg

Helsinki

Santo Domingo

Nice

Taipei

New Orleans

The tiles looked up and said this one is just for you, pedestrian.

New Orleans

Aerial acrobatics over the Gulf of Mexico! The Blue Angels thunder across the sky while BP workers pile up trash bags of tar balls and girls lay out topless. It’s a whole lot of look at the Pensacola Beach Air Show. While jets circle overhead people talk about the famous sand, once “sugar white” and now stained yellow. A tan lady stares at the trash bags. “Why are they going so slow with toy shovels? It all makes me want to puke.” Another woman says they’re only allowed to work fifteen minutes each hour. The workers show me what they’re scooping – soft dark pellets the size of cockroaches to coasters. He circles a tar ball in the sand and says they collected ones the size of plates earlier this morning. Then he looks around. “I’m not supposed to be talking to anyone.”

It’s hard to tell where vacation ends and hazard begins. 125 miles east, in Mexico Beach, the Gulf is full of kids. 125 miles west, in Biloxi, families are splashing in the waves. One mile west, an official sign from the county health department says the beach has been affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and avoid the water. Here on this beach, a handwritten chalk sign says stay out of the water, but only because of the high surf and currents. No one wants to cut the local tourism short if they don’t have to. People still walk along the shore and let the waves hit their feet. Six out of forty beach chairs are used. Men in neon vests walk slowly with shovels while girls in bright bikinis adjust their straps and waves leave brown outlines in the sand. “Is it safe to go in the water?” one lady asks me. “I let my grandson go in yesterday… Is that wrong?”

Nashville, TN

It was one of the first words I learned in Finland: mahtava. Finnish for “awesome”. It worked itself into my daily vocabulary because it does things that “awesome” never can, letting you exhale and simmer on the awesomeness of it all: MAH-ta-vaaaaaa. My year and a half living in Helsinki were mahtava in large part to the friends I made at Nokia and beyond, a global crew from Finland, Italy, Holland, Chile, India, Romania, Ireland, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, Spain, Germany, Singapore, Norway, Canada, the UK, the US, and beyond, who made me feel like I belonged the moment I touched down. Like Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, we all lived within blocks of each other and for that reason and others we hung out with an intensity I have only experienced at camp. Many of us worked in the same building. All of us ate and drank at the same places. And most of us danced our hearts out until nothing mattered besides friends, rhythm, and avoiding the broken glass.

By coincidence and for all positive reasons, five of us left Helsinki at the same time. While packing up my apartment I found a can of temporary spray chalk in the back of my closet. I cut out a stencil while stuffing things into suitcases, and after friends came over for one last hurrah and we laughed and played and they adopted my chairs and lamps and we slow-danced and hugged, I crept out into the night and left one last message to them in front of their doors and streets and their favorite cafes, something they would see only after I was up in the clouds. There are few feelings greater than leaving a love note in public space, a note that all people will enjoy but certain ones will enjoy even more. Helsinki, you make me feel so mahtava! We were all together at this moment in time in our lives and it was great.

Uudenmaankatu

Gran Delicato Cafe, Kalevankatu

Bulevardi

Thanks to good neighbors in NYC and Helsinki, Candy shared a corkscrew, a ladder, a large pot, chairs, a bike, an air pump, wi-fi, design books, a drill, an iron, professional studio lights, an inflatable bed, wine, and food. And this was only amongst a few neighbors because she rarely bumped into most and had no way to break the ice. In a time where SMS has made phone calls seem invasive, a door knock feels nearly violating. Her neighbors could be in their pajamas, eating dinner, fresh out of the shower, or making out, and suddenly she’s banging on their door…

So when the good people of GOOD Magazine invited her to contribute to their Neighborhoods issue, she wondered if she could take advantage of the format and make something that could be torn out of the magazine and used as a tool. The Neighbor Doorknob Hanger is a simple, double-sided sign that provides a friendly platform for residents in dense quarters to offer and request things at everyone’s convenience. One side says “Please Disturb” and makes space for you to list offerings and choose how you prefer to be contacted – a knock at specific times that are good for you, by phone, or by email. The other side of the doorknob hanger says “Can I borrow?” and provides the same format for requesting things and resources. Think of it as an invitation, a validated request, or a low-tech status update for your door, so we can share more resources without interrupting each other at a bad time!

2010, 3.5″ x 9″, Printed on fine card stock in GOOD Magazine April 2010 issue. If you missed the issue, you can print your own at home with these fine pdf files of side 1 and side 2.

New Jersey service station

Bangalore

Johannesburg

Somewhere in North Carolina

Medan

Panama City FL

Placencia

New York City

Tallinn

Nice

Johor Bahru

Johannesburg

Los Angeles

“Bob, our sales are down. What we need is a sign that will freak the fuck out of everyone.”

Riffing off the ground signage dividing bikes and pedestrians in Helsinki…

a more nuanced edit on my block on Uudenmaankatu.

Grenoble

Maui

Bangalore

Genoa

Johannesburg

Prague

Singapore. No durian fruit, a.k.a. the stinkbomb.

The tables tell the story in Finland’s immigration office in Malmi: Chechnya 09, Espana, Israel, Be cool, Kosova, Moskova, 30.9.2008 Today, Kurdistan PKK, Kill Bill, Estonia, Turkey, Ahmad 2010-1-13, Iran, Unite, Somali, Vive la France, Hello Everybody!

I’m watching Google Translate re-calibrate in real time as I enter Finnish into the text box, and it’s making government mail kind of exciting:

“In order… In order to fall… In order to continue to be on Social Security… In order to include the Social Security system you must submit a new oleskelulupanne…”

By the end it falls apart (“If you do not ask the time limits by asking clarification, video tracks will be settled between us”), but this is what you get for being an expat. Learn the language or enjoy creative cooking instructions like “pour into a mature pasta strainer” and “catapult the water.” When I first arrived I was pumped to learn Finnish. A year later the extent of my vocabulary still sits around hei (hi), moi moi (bye), kiitos (thanks), miten menee (how are you), mahtava (awesome!), loistava (brilliant!), kippis (cheers!), and hei läskiperse (hey fat ass!). Since most Finns speak English and work at Nokia is in English, the experience has been more like Expat for Beginners, and even Finns admit the language is complicated and hard on the eyes. I feel most immigrant-y when I get my mail or go to the grocery store. Typing words like “haltuunottotodistuksen” into Google Translate isn’t easy and I bring the serious-looking stuff to my Finnish co-workers for help. I only translate mail that looks like I might get deported. I’ll wait for a point-and-shoot translator gun for the rest.

Despite appearances, appelsiini is in fact not apple juice but orange juice (apple juice is omenamehun); leipäjuusto is Finland’s tasty mozzarella-like “squeaky cheese”; and that’s about as advanced as I get with food words. I treat the grocery store as a sensory experience and pick what feels right. I believe the milk in the lighter blue packaging means it has less fat. I pick the mystery meat slices that look most delicious. I choose the salad dressing that’s not too orange and not too yellow. I try the bread in the green packaging this time and the orange packaging next time. I have no idea what this is but I like the design of the label. I go by the pictures. I know what it’s like to be illiterate. This has actually encouraged me to linger longer around the fresh produce, which feels familiar without effort (I know you, banana), but winging it also means you end up buying a zucchini when you meant to buy a cucumber.

Driving etiquette turned around – trucks and autorickshaws in India actually ask drivers to honk at them with some pretty elaborate bumper signs. It’s the lazy man’s driving strategy – “Ima keep driving like this. If you have a problem with it then toot.” You can imagine what kind of ruckus this causes in traffic and the things they’ve tried to stop it, like No Honking Day. But how do you tell the driver in front of you to stop honking…

Johor Bahru

Storefronts post surveillance video stills of shoplifters as a warning to others and a form of public shame. Makes me wonder about the upshots of surveillance and if Helsinki can do the same for all the drunk people who pee on the streets…

Turku, Finland

If it’s going to be winter, then let it be WINTER. The Big Ship by Brian Eno on repeat while gliding on a train through soft Finnish snow forests.

“Every design process is incomplete unless it takes into careful consideration what could be done with the product by a dictatorial megalomaniac in command of a national economy, a secret police, and a large army.” – Bruce Sterling

Fun and classy signage in Helsinki’s Alkos that includes over 20 icons to help customers feel out potential food pairings. The duck with the holes? Game birds ha.