Candy Chang - I Wish This Was (2010)
“I Wish This Was was inspired by vacant storefronts. There are many where Candy lives in New Orleans. There are also many people who need and want things. Who knows a place better than the people who live and work there? We know what businesses and services we need, and we know what would make our neighborhoods more ours. What if we could easily voice what we want, where we want it?
As an experiment, Candy created fill-in-the-blank stickers that say ‘I wish this was ____.’ She placed boxes of free stickers in businesses around the city and posted grids of blank stickers and a permanent marker on vacant storefronts, so anyone walking by could fill one out. Responses ranged from the functional to the poetic, reflecting the hopes, dreams, and colorful imaginations of different neighborhoods.”