04 Before I Die by Candy Chang
"Before I Die" is an art project that was started by Candy Chang in New Orleans, a city in Louisiana.
In her TED talk video, she mentioned that in 2009, she lost someone dear to her and that made her think a lot about death but it also brought clarity to the things that are meaningful in her life and thus, this project was born. Because she's from New Orleans and there's a lot of abandoned houses there, she put up a giant chalkboard on one and stencilled the words "Before I Die, I want to...". Anyone can just pick up the chalk and fill in the blanks. The aim of this art project is to let people reflect on their lives and to put their personal aspirations to it. The project helps people to put things into perspective and to learn what matters most in their lives. It's a project that can be participated by anyone who comes across it. She did this as an experiment and it turned out to be a big hit.
She got so many different unique responses from it and even made a "Before I Die" toolkit so that people from all around the world could do this in their own community.
from this physical project, she made it into an online project, a website beforeidieproject.com that helped her connect to even more people around the globe. the responses received are uploaded, including the city they're from, onto a page on her project's website.
I think it's great that she brought a project that was originally made for physical participation to bringing it online, to the world, by making a toolkit and a website with online responses. This allowed her audience to connect and communicate with her project even though they're not there physically. It gives them the opportunity to be in on something really meaningful. From there, people even took the toolkit and started their own "Before I Die" in their community.
Speaking of that, on their website, they made an archive of every country who has done it before and I found one that was done in Selangor, Malaysia!
Before I Die - Selangor, Malaysia. (n.d.)
The Before I Die walls were put up as part of an event that raised awareness for and encourage conversations about palliative care - a medical approach that seeks to improve the quality of life for patients and their families faced with life-limiting illnesses (Before I Die - Selangor, Malaysia, n.d.).
Before I Die - Selangor, Malaysia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://beforeidieproject.com/archive/walls/selangor-malaysia/
Chang, C. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to?language=en#t-360576
Responses (2019, September 20). Retrieved May 10, 2020, from https://beforeidieproject.com/responses
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