Before I Die

Created by the artist @CandyChang, the Before I Die project is a memento mori for the modern age. See also: @RitualFields

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Thank you to everyone who has supported the Before I Die project! This station is on hiatus. For more projects and notes on ritual in public space, please visit @CandyChang and/or tune into @RitualFields.

[Candy Chang @candychang]

There’s a new Before I Die wall in China! “Before I die I want to... wait for the wind and you, eat eat eat, make a difference, see my daughter’s dreams come true,” from Shanghai on Mogan Shan Road, thanks to Wang ZhengDao and friends.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Scene from Puebla, Mexico: “Before I Die I want to be a good father.”

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

The increasingly urgent desire for concentration in these days of distraction.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Dispatches from Richmond, Virginia: Before I die I want to forget about myself. I want to understand my dad (and he me). I want to live slowly. I want to write letters to everyone I love. I want to go deep into the mysteries of my own soul. I want to eat peanut butter again.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Heavy Rotation: William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. Six hours of grace reverberating from a haunted reel-to-reel machine.

“Our world is in a bad feedback loop right now," said Basinski. "It’s not gonna be pretty but eventually things will resolve." https://t.co/OhYwXkpNxL

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

“Before I die I want to... right all my wrongs, end racism,” from Brooklyn, NY

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Erupting out of Freedom Park in Lagos, Nigeria: “Before I die I want to... become a great surgeon, make my mother proud, be an enabler of success, set souls on fire with my words and actions.”

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

A wall in Dhaka, Bangladesh: “Before I die I want to make my mother tear up with pride once again.”

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Report from Springfield, Missouri: "Before I die I want to go on an archaeological dig. Go to college. Walk without my cane. Change a life."

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

A Before I Die response from Brooklyn is back in the streets thanks to Art in Ad Places:
https://t.co/pNA219hnsl

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

In the courtyard of a church in Australia, a wall is returned to a tabula rasa for another collection of desires, anxieties, and dreams.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Desires that read like a hymn: I want to stop wanting. I want to forgive myself. I want to face death without fear. I want to be ready.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Meanwhile in the city of Long Beach, a man gets down on his knees and wishes for a second chance.

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

Counterpoint from the Earl of Shaftesbury: “We polish one another, and rub off our corners and rough sides by a sort of amicable collision.”

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

"We are like hedge-hogs clustering together for warmth," said Schopenhauer. "Uncomfortable when closely packed yet miserable when apart."

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

A dispatch from the International Youth Hostel in Xiamen, China: "Before I die I want to fill my soul."

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

A dream from Shanghai: "Before I die I want to travel through space and look through galaxies."

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

“A free man thinks of nothing less than of death,” writes Spinoza. “And his wisdom is a meditation not on death, but on life.”

[Before I Die @beforeidieproj]

"Forgive" is a common response on the walls, which brings to mind Oscar Wilde: "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."