Summary
- In an interview with IHI, Candy Chang offers insights about loneliness, grief, and ways to build real-world connection and community. Chang will be a keynote speaker at the IHI Forum (December 7–10, 2025 in Anaheim, CA)
Candy Chang is an artist, designer, and creator of the globally renowned Before I Die project. Her work explores how thoughtful design can transform public spaces into catalysts for personal and collective meaning. She merges art, psychology, and urban design to encourage honest conversations about community, grief, aspirations, and mental health. Through powerful storytelling and striking visuals, Chang illustrates how small interventions — such as a chalkboard wall inviting people to share their dreams, or a doorknob hanger that says “Please disturb!” — can have a profound impact on individuals and entire communities.
After experiencing a loss, you created the first “Before I Die” installation on the side of a building in your New Orleans neighborhood. The wall invited people to finish the sentence, “Before I die, I want to ____.” What are some of the answers that people added?
Some of the first answers were, “Before I die, I want to get my wife back.” “I want to eat all the candy and sushi in the world.” “I want to overcome addiction.” “I want to forgive my parents for their shortcomings.” “I want to build a school.” “I want to see equality.”
There are really poetic ones, like “I want to evaporate into the light.”
The very first response — we hadn't even finished making the whole wall and a guy dressed up as a pirate walked by and wrote, “Before I die, I want to be tried for piracy.”
What was it like to read people’s responses while you were grieving?
The responses were across the board, and it really reflected life. Life is all of these things. It is joy and pain and anxiety and hope. The responses that really resonated with me at that moment in my life were the devastating ones, the tragic ones, the ones that you typically don’t tell a stranger, because they made me feel less alone. And they gave me courage to face my own confusion, to not just repress it, to talk about it with others.
I saw the value of anonymity in these spaces. As opposed to most online spaces that are full of judgment and facades, this anonymity allowed people to be honest and vulnerable without fear of judgment. I find that honesty really refreshing in our performative age.
Now that these walls have spread around the world, there’s a toolkit to help people create their own. One of the instructions you’ve included is, “Please keep the word ‘die’ in Before I Die.” What does it say about our discomfort with death that you needed to add that note? Why is it so important to talk about death?
I added that note once I saw more than one wall that said, “While I’m still alive…”
People have talked about it a lot. You know, we have a lot of “word voodoo” around death. I felt like, for what other reason would you change the wording?
When I think about death, suddenly a lot of day-to-day stresses become so small and so silly. I think it’s the quickest way to restore perspective and remember what really matters to you.
Also, preparing for our deaths is like one of the greatest gifts we can give to our loved ones. I've seen a few friends go through painful, chaotic times when their parents die and there’s no plan left behind. The more that we can become comfortable talking about death, I think, the more that we can change the culture around it. The more that we can encounter death in a way that is more compassionate, that really prepares us as individuals and as a community.
How do isolation and loneliness impact our health and our well-being?
I have a few friends and loved ones who are in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have seen the profound impact AA has had on their lives. It’s because they found community.
When we're isolated, it’s easy to feel disconnected, to lose perspective, to slip into bad habits, to self-soothe through food or alcohol or other things that can lead to addiction, which can then lead to self-loathing. It’s like a vicious cycle.
I think connection is the answer. Knowing that you’re not alone in your struggles can be incredibly reassuring, and I think it's a step toward seeing ourselves in each other.
As we face concerns as a society about loneliness and mental health, where are you finding hope?
I feel like the way that most of social media is designed is that it feeds our worst impulses. It encourages constant comparison, judgment, extreme opinions, shaming. You see that rippling out into our society in many ways. It’s like nightmare fuel from middle school, which is nobody’s dream. Why did we do this to ourselves?
I find hope in that people seem to be increasingly tired and exhausted around social media. I see more and more of that, and I am hopeful.
Your work is closely connected to neighborhoods and to a sense of place. For example, you’ve talked about your love of New Orleans. What are the challenges in building a sense of real-world community when so much time is spent on screens?
What interesting times we live in. I could easily be entertained behind a screen forever. And I also know that it makes me feel like a blob with two eyes. It makes me feel disembodied, and when I feel disembodied, I feel more and more disconnected, ungrounded, untethered.
There are probably many challenges. Fighting our autopilots and being proactive. Finding groups and events that we’re into. I am lazy, but I regularly meet up with friends for game club and dream club and museum club. You know, no video call has ever made me feel the kind of electricity and energy that I feel when I hang out with people in person. These experiences make me feel grounded and alive. I think that one challenge is to make places that honor all of our senses — sight, sound, sense, touch — great places that can make us feel fully embodied, which can make us feel fully alive.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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