Innovator-in-Residence Program
2021-22: Candy Chang and James A. Reeves
Our Innovators-in-Residence for 2021-22 were artists Candy Chang and James A. Reeves, who spent six weeks at ASL in spring 2022.
Candy and James are a creative duo who design installations and multi-disciplinary artworks that focus on emotional health and connection. Their work envisions the future of ritual in an increasingly alienating world, and centers on how loneliness and isolation can bring people together as communities.
For more than 10 years, Candy and James have collaborated on public rituals to contemplate the human condition. They have exhibited all over the USA, including at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, and the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. Inspired by the devotional images of religion, the ancient I Ching, and cyberpunk visions, they create public works that facilitate conversations about refuge in the modern world.
Trained as an architect, urban planner, and designer, Candy creates participatory art that examines the dynamics between society and the psyche. She is best known for creating Before I Die, a global participatory installation in more than 5,000 cities that invites people to share their personal aspirations in public. James is a writer, educator and artist whose work addresses philosophy and ritual in the digital age; his first book, The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir, was published by W. W. Norton. Together, they have collaborated on interdisciplinary art projects in cities around the world, including New York, Hong Kong, New Orleans, Lisbon, Heraklion and Los Angeles.