Candy Chang's work encompasses installation and painting that weave intimate testimonies from strangers into broader meditations on community and ritual. Through the activation of public spaces around the world, her participatory installations invite anonymous testimonies of desire, dread, sorrow, hope, and courage from the public, challenging norms of visibility and modes of communion. Before I Die has been created in over 5,000 cities across 75 countries. After the End was a 2021 New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Trained in architecture and urban planning, and initially experimenting in public space through street art while running a record label, her interdisciplinary approach manifests in interventions that blur the boundaries between civic and sacred spaces. Drawing from her Taiwanese heritage and cultural reverence for calligraphy, she imagines the handwritten word as spiritual artifact in an increasingly digital and disembodied age.
Her work has been exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale, Smithsonian American Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Rubin Museum, Mint Museum, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Puffin Foundation, and Black Rock Arts Foundation, and she has received fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council, Hemera Foundation, TED, Center for Urban Pedagogy, and the World Economic Forum. She has given talks at TED, Walker Art Center, Global Health Summit, School of Visual Arts, and the American Planning Association.
Born and raised in the American Midwest, Chang has lived and worked in New York City, New Orleans, Helsinki, Philadelphia, London, Taipei, and the Mojave Desert, before settling in Columbus, Ohio, where she lives down the hall from her parents.
Artist Statement
I grew up secular and when life's inevitable tragedies arrived, my inner world felt like it didn’t belong outside at all. This set off my interest in the future of ritual in public life: shared spaces to commune with others over existential questions without the requirement of shared doctrine. In a time of increasing isolation, division, and disembodiment from living behind screens, we need more public spaces that speak to the pains of our age.
As the child of Taiwanese immigrants, I was raised very American amidst the cornfields of Ohio while surrounded by Asian art at home. I saw Chinese calligraphy worshipped as both personal and spiritual art, and this instilled my reverence for the handwritten word. When we write by hand, we return to the body and leave traces of our humanity that cannot be captured with digital text. When we anonymously share without fear of judgment or desire for recognition, what emerges looks profoundly different from performative forums.
As the steward of hundreds of thousands of handwritten reflections on life in the early 21st century, I use these fragments in paintings and videos that explore the nature of language, desire, and our relation to history. Inspirations include the speculative worlds of Philip K. Dick and David Lynch, the humanistic and embodied visions of city life by Jane Jacobs and Juhani Pallasmaa. the mark-making of Chu Chen-Nan (朱 振 南) and Agnes Martin, the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Byung-Chul Han, brutalist architecture and ancient temples, and the laid-back curiosity of Zhuangzi (莊子).
Contact
Speaking inquiries: The Lavin Agency | Email
Art inquiries: Email
Stay in touch: Bluesky | Instagram | Email
Education
M.S. Urban Planning, Columbia University
B.A. Design, University of Michigan
B.S. Architecture, University of Michigan