Before I die... 01 March, 2011

Candy Chang is an Urban Planner, artists, and designer who gets community involvment through neat uses of public spaces. She is one of the 2011 Ted Fellows. Her talk at TED was on Iwishthiswas, a sticker campaign that isn't too hard to figure out from the name. As awesome as this project is I really like here "Before I die" installation in New Orleans:

(via) http://candychang.com/

She found an abandon building and painted a large chalk board with the stenciled phase "Before I die I want to ________________". There is chalk available so community members can fill in their wishes. I can just imagine seeing 3 or 4 other people with the same dream as you. Or seeing a dream that you could help someone achieve. A nice subtle way to inject humanity on a typical eyesore.

Both of these projects are amazing in their simplicity and ability to allow people to interact as a community, turning neglected spaces into inspiration.

 Since I don't want to order a lot of chalkboard paint I order the stickers for now.