Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | 7:00pm PT
Designing Belonging: Creativity, Grief & the Spaces Between Us with Candy Chang
Attendance is Complimentary. Registration is Required.
Registration Now Open
In a world increasingly marked by isolation and division, artist and urban designer Candy Chang offers a powerful counterpoint: We can still design spaces—physical, emotional, and communal—that foster connection, reflection, and belonging. Best known for her global Before I Die project, Chang has transformed walls, museums, neighborhoods, and even casinos into places of shared vulnerability, creativity, and hope. In this deeply moving and visually rich session, she explores how art can help us process grief, spark dialogue, and bridge the spaces between us. Drawing on a career of participatory installations across more than 70 countries, Candy shows us how to leverage the power of creativity and community to design lives, and environments, where people feel seen, supported, and at home.
6:00pm: Doors open, reception
7:00pm: Program begins promptly
8:00pm: Reception
Bio
In an age of polarization and distrust, we can still come together in community. World-renowned artist Candy Chang has spent her career exploring creative ways to foster belonging and connection. Her initiatives include the Before I Die walls, where people reflected on death together by writing down what they wanted to do before they died; a project where she provided doorknob hangers so neighbors could borrow and lend household items; Confessions, where she invited people to share secrets anonymously; and many more. The Atlantic called Before I Die “one of the most creative community projects ever.” In inspiring, authentic talks, Candy shows us how to leverage the power of creativity and community to foster spaces of belonging in our schools, homes, and organizations.
Through brilliant public art installations, Candy provokes both playful and profound visions for how we can connect, reflect, and nurture the health of our communities. Candy is best known for the Before I Die project, which began when she stenciled the words “Before I die I want to ” on a chalkboard wall on an abandoned house in New Orleans after losing someone she loved. The interactive project has since grown into a global phenomenon. Today, there are over 5,000 Before I Die walls in over 70 countries, including Iraq, China, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and South Africa. The Before I Die project and subsequent book, which features walls around the world and insights into our aspirations, have been featured on CNN, NBC, TED, and AP News, and in WIRED.
Her other projects include the interactive public installation A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. When it closed in late 2018, the project had amassed over 55,000 anxieties and hopes. She also created Neighborland, a public engagement tool to help organizations and residents give input and collaborate on the future of their communities. Most recently, her video installation The Nightly News reveals the images that haunt our dreams—and emphasizes the commonalities that bind us together.
A TED Senior Fellow, Urban Innovation Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Candy has also created installations for people to share their hopes for vacant storefronts, a confessional sanctuary in a Las Vegas casino, and designated sites for crying in Hong Kong. Her work has been exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale, New Museum, and Tate Modern. She was also named one of the Top 100 Leaders in Public Interest Design by Impact Design Hub and a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by O, the Oprah Magazine.