COMMUNITIES – Friday, Sept. 22 – Buffalo Humanities Festival

Friday, Sept. 22

6:00pm | Buffalo & Erie County Library – Central Branch Auditorium (1 Lafayette Square)

Artist Candy Chang spray painting stencil with "Before I did I want to _______" repeated on multiple rows — Photo by Kristina Kessem

An Evening with Candy Chang, “The Power of Public Art to Engage Communities”

World-renowned artist and urban designer Candy Chang engages communities to share everything from their greatest hopes to their deepest anxieties in public. The Atlantic calls her artwork Before I Die “one of the most creative community projects ever.” In her captivating and intimate talks, she demystifies the creative process, inspires personal reflection, and provokes new ideas for community and well-being.

visit buffalo’s before i die walls

Through the activation of public spaces around the world, Candy Chang provokes both playful and profound visions for how we can connect, reflect, and nurture the health of our communities. Chang 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 participatory project has since grown into a global phenomenon and today there are over 5,000 Before I Die walls in over 70 countries, including Iraq, China, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and South Africa.

More about Candy Chang

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, AP News, and Wired. One of her recent projects is the participatory 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. Currently, Chang is working with a variey of authorities (like psychologists and Buddhist monks) to examine the themes that run through the thoughts collected, and interpret what they say about us during these times, ripe with uncertainty and distraction as they are.

A TED Senior Fellow, Urban Innovation Fellow, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Chang has also created installations for people to share their hopes for vacant storefronts, a confessional sanctuary in a Las Vegas casino, designated sites for crying in Hong Kong, and a civic tool called Neighborland.com for people to collaborate on the future of their communities. 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 Oprah Magazine.

Visit Candy Chang’s website for more information about the artist.

Communities: Trust at The Front Yard

Premieres at Dark | The Front Yard at the Burchfield Penney Art Center (1300 Elmwood Avenue)

On September 22^nd, the Burchfield Penney Art Center will re-introduce the Buffalo community to The Front Yard, featuring seasonally changing projected media art programs highlighting the work of Western New York artists. The inaugural program revolves around the theme of communities: trust, coinciding with The 2023 Buffalo Humanities Festival. Presentations will begin after dark each night and will run for three months.

Communities: Trust, guest curated by Dorothea Braemer, Lukia Costello, and Meg Knowles, tackles the topic of community and trust through the lens of the diverse perspectives of 10 regional media artists. Tammy McGovern’s and Steven Ansell’s Autostorm presents a notion of community disappeared into the confines of our cars. Kyla Kegler’s Monster Society performatively studies alienation and finding ways to approach community. Her Own Hero by Lukia Costello and the late Tilke Hill tackles the history of women’s self-defense, and Harlem Nights by Kaitlyn Lowe celebrates the community of radical artists of the Harlem Renaissance in the form of a visual poem. In Savage Future, Terry Jones interrogates the American-Indian boarding school experience and in Mrs. Snow, Annette Daniels-Taylor explores the mindset of a mid century African-American domestic worker. Olurotimi Akanbi’s Urban Transitions draws attention to the contrast between communities in urban and rural landscapes in and around Buffalo, while Edreys Wajed’s The Sidewalk imagines community from the perspective of a side walk on Buffalo’s East Side. Interwoven throughout the program are pieces by Phil Hastings and David Mawer. Three pieces from Phil Hasting’s poetic fragmentum series metaphorically address community through evocative studies of humans and nature. Seven playful geometric studies from David Mawer reference landing sequences and the pull of gravity through patterns of undulating dots, lines and shapes, sometimes superimposed over maps.

Read more about Communities: Trust at the Front Yard

Dorothea Braemer and Meg Knowles are filmmakers and professors in the media production major at Buffalo State University, and Lukia Costello, also a filmmaker, is the founding director of the Spark Filmmaker Collaborative and the Micromania Film Festival.

Communities: Trust – Program Order and Credits:

Tammy McGovern and Steven Ansell – Autostorm, 2023

Kyla Kegler – Monster Society, 2022

David Mawer – Lerp Puppet Strings, No. 1, 2023

Philip Hastings – fragmentum 62 (c), 2017

David Mawer – Landing Sequence (for an Interdimensional Fleet), No. 3, 2023

Lukia Costello and Tilke Hill – Her Own Hero, 2022

David Mawer – Algorithm for a Gravity Wave: Dots, 2023

Kaitlyn Lowe – Harlem Nights, 2022

Phil Hastings – fragmentum 37 (b), 2018

David Mawer – Landing Sequence (for an Interdimensional Fleet), No. 2, 2023

Terry Jones – Savage Future, 2022