The young American artist Candy Chang created a new participatory public installation called A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful at The Rubin Museum of Art, New York, to be exhibited during 2018 (February 2018 until January 7, 2019). In collaboration with the American writer James A. Reeves, he created this exhibition to think about how we relate to the future.

Candy Chang is the creator of the work “Before I Die”, one of the most creative community projects in history.

“By definition, anxiety and hope are determined by a moment that has yet to arrive—but how often do we pause to fully consider our relationship with the future? What apprehensions, expectations, and stories define our field of vision? And how do our private sensibilities square with the current collective mood?” candychang.com

The division between having hope and being anxious is crossed by color. “I have hope” should be written on a blue paper and “I am anxious” in red. The viewer must then place the paper in the corresponding panel.

The answers are many and varied, from the most general ones like “climate change”, other intermediates of the type “people do not care about the other” and personal matters such as “I have to deliver 3 papers next Thursday”. What is clear is that once the person decides to include his message, something impulsive is perceived. Maybe it is the adrenaline to express a feeling and know that those words will be “heard” by other people.