What do you want to do before you die? Go to Antarctica? Climb a mountain? Get straight A’s?
Well, no matter what your message is, the perfect place to express it is on one of the “Before I Die” walls. The Before I Die project was started by Candy Chang. Chang wanted to create a place for people to express their hopes and dreams.
What she came up with was a giant chalkboard that repeated the line “Before I die I want to ______________,” over and over, so that people could fill in the blanks. The first Before I Die wall sprung up on the side of an abandoned house in New Orleans, Louisiana. Chang’s experiment with street art was so successful that she began to travel to new locations to create the walls. She’s left her mark across the United States and abroad in countries such as Australia and Spain.
Before I Die walls have become so in demand that Chang created a guide to create the wall on your own. For Fashion’s Night Out this year, the Ames Hotel sponsored a small version of the wall in the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The wall, which stood from 9/04 to 9/10, was covered in colorful chalk and expressions by the time it was taken down.
“Before I die I want to see the Red Sox beat the Yankees in person,” was just one of the messages unique to Boston. Ultimately, Chang’s project is about inspiring community. Her walls are places for everyone in a city to come together and express their desires in one place. We can read the dreams of our neighbors and share ours with them as well.
Although the wall no longer stands, it’s time to start thinking Her Campus BU: What do you want to accomplish in your lifetime?
Read more about the Before I Die Project and see a list of current walls here.