2027 Creative Capital Application Draft — The Breathing Room

DRAFT — Prepared March 31, 2026 Round I Deadline: April 2, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET

Applicant Information

• Application type: Collaborative
• Lead applicant: Candy Chang
• Collaborator: James A. Reeves
• Address: 5745 Newbank Circle Suite 301, Dublin, OH 43017
• Emails: candy@candychang.com / james@jamesreeves.co
• Websites: candychang.com / jamesreeves.co
• Hometown: Columbus, OH
• Career stage: Mid-career
• Estimated project completion: December 2027

Primary Discipline & Sub-Disciplines

• Primary discipline: Visual Arts
• Sub-disciplines (up to 3): Installation; Sculpture; Social Practice

Project Title

(10 words max)

The Breathing Room

One-Line Project Description

(50 words / 400 characters max)

The Breathing Room transforms a gallery into a futuristic temple where monumental hanging scrolls slowly expand and contract at the 5.5-second rhythm shared across contemplative traditions worldwide and across time, synchronizing visitors’ breath and creating a space of collective physiological communion in a time of isolation and disembodiment.

Project Description

(500 words / 3,550 characters max)

The Breathing Room will transform a 1,000-square-foot gallery at the McConnell Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio, into a living architecture that breathes.

At the center of the gallery, a monumental curtain of large-scale hanging scrolls will be suspended from ceiling to floor in a circular formation, creating an intimate temple within the space. Composed of layered, semi-translucent materials, the scrolls form a porous architecture that reshapes how visitors move through and perceive the room. A hidden mechanical system will cause the entire curtain to slowly expand and contract, mimicking the motion of breath at a rate of 5.5 seconds per inhale and exhale — the same rhythm that researchers at the University of Pavia found across contemplative traditions worldwide, from Buddhist chanting and yogic pranayama to the Catholic rosary and Islamic dhikr.

Visitors are not instructed to breathe in a particular way. Instead, the environment gently guides the body toward synchronization. Over time, many will find their breath unconsciously aligning with the slow pulse of the scrolls. This process of entrainment — where physiological rhythms adjust to environmental cues — creates a shared, embodied experience of time that unfolds beneath language and ideology, fostering collective presence without requiring conversation or belief.

The scrolls themselves are a culmination of our 2025 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, during which we studied traditional scroll-making in Taiwan under the mentorship of Master Wu Ting Wei and visited sacred architecture throughout Japan. They feature handwritten community testimonies about breath, healing, and environmental connection, painted using calligraphic techniques that honor the traditions we studied. In every ancient language, the word for soul originally meant breath: the Sumerians called it zi, the Egyptians ba, the Sanskrit speakers atman, the Hebrews nephesh, the Greeks psyche. The scrolls draw upon this universal connection between breath and spirit.

Within the shifting folds of the curtain, a partially obscured sculptural form will intermittently reveal itself. Illuminated by subtle projections of sacred iconography — Buddhist mandalas, sacred hearts, Islamic geometric patterns, indigenous medicine wheels — alongside handwritten community reflections, the figure is never fully visible. It appears and recedes as the breathing structure opens and closes, offering only fleeting fragments. This deliberate withholding draws on our encounters with veiled gods and hidden icons in Taoist temples and Shinto shrines, where sacred objects are often concealed or briefly glimpsed. Rather than presenting an image to be consumed, the installation restores a sense of mystery, asking viewers to sit with not-knowing and partial revelation.

Ambient sound completes the atmosphere: temple chants decelerated and layered with synthesizers, at once meditative and otherworldly.

Pre-exhibition workshops with local meditation centers, churches, and healing communities will collect the handwritten testimonies that become part of the scrolls and projections. Daily guided breathing sessions during the four-month exhibition connect personal practice to collective well-being. As a free public exhibition open September through December 2027, The Breathing Room is designed for a broad community — including visitors who may not typically engage with contemporary art — offering rest and communion at a time when many of us feel overwhelmed and disconnected.

Question 1: Innovation and Originality

Creative Capital supports formally and conceptually innovative and experimental work. How does your project idea take an original and imaginative approach to content and form? (150 words / 1,050 characters max)

The Breathing Room takes an original approach by making the gallery itself breathe, translating a universal physiological act into sculptural form. Rather than representing breath and connection, this installation produces it: a hidden system causes monumental scrolls to expand and contract at a calibrated rhythm, entraining visitors’ bodies toward synchronization without instruction. This fusion of kinetic sculpture with collective physiology offers a new approach to contemporary art.

The project also challenges how we encounter the sacred in secular space. Drawing on our research in Taiwanese temples and Japanese shrines, the veiled central sculpture resists our culture’s emphasis on total visibility, possession, and absolute comprehension. Meaning is approached, not delivered. By combining hand-painted scrolls rooted in centuries-old calligraphic traditions with mechanical engineering and projected iconography, The Breathing Room creates a form both ancient and future-facing—a ritual technology for our disembodied age.

Question 2: Context and Influences

Place your work in context. What are the main influences upon your work as an artist? How does your past work inform your current project? (150 words / 1,050 characters max)

Our practice began with a sense of need. Like many Americans, we grew up without faith or community. After reckoning with loss, we craved the communion of ritual, so we created participatory installations that collected handwritten reflections on the human condition in city plazas, cemeteries, storefronts, and galleries. As stewards of hundreds of thousands of testimonies, we are now distilling this material into more a ambitious form.

The Breathing Room synthesizes influences across disciplines: the contemplative architecture of James Turrell’s Skyspaces and Rothko Chapel; the mark-making of Chu Chen Nan and Agnes Martin; the philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s writings on the disappearance of ritual; and neuroscience research on resonant breathing at 5.5 breaths per minute. It is also directly informed by our 2025 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship studying sacred architecture and scroll-making in Taiwan and Japan, where we encountered how concealment and mystery remain central to spiritual experience.

Question 3: Impact and Audience

What kind of impact do you hope your project will have, and why? What specific audiences and/or communities will the project engage? (150 words / 1,050 characters max)

In these days of constant visibility and digital disembodiment, The Breathing Room proposes contemplation as a civic act. We want visitors to experience breath not as a private self-help technique but as a communal ritual—something we do together that connects us to the natural world.

As a free public exhibition at the McConnell Arts Center in Columbus, this project is designed to reach beyond traditional art audiences. Pre-exhibition workshops will engage local meditation centers, churches, environmental organizations, and community health initiatives. Daily guided breathing sessions create ongoing opportunities for communal experience. We will specifically engage Columbus’s growing immigrant communities, including Asian diaspora populations seeking to reconnect with contemplative traditions.

We hope the project sparks dialogue about how shared physiological experience can foster empathy and belonging—offering a countermeasure to the loneliness, polarization, and sensory overwhelm that define our cultural moment.

Question 4: Catalytic Moment

Creative Capital awards artists at catalytic moments in their careers. How is this a catalytic moment in your practice? How will your proposed project or new work act as a catalyst for your artistic and professional growth? (150 words / 1,050 characters max)

After a decade of creating participatory installations, we have reached a pivotal moment. A 2025 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in Taiwan and Japan opened an entirely new direction for our collaborative practice: translating traditional craft and contemplative design into immersive, mechanized environments. The Breathing Room is the first major work to emerge from this research, and it represents a significant evolution from collecting public reflections toward incorporating them into embodied experiences of communion.

We have secured a gallery space, prototyped the scroll system with local fabricators, and received initial grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Arts Council. Creative Capital’s support would arrive at the ideal moment — when the concept is proven but the full production requires resources and professional guidance we cannot access alone. The long-term relationship Creative Capital offers would help us develop this new body of work into a touring practice with national reach.

Collaborative Bio — Short

(50 words max)

Candy Chang and James A. Reeves collaborate on public installations that introduce new rituals into shared spaces. Their participatory work has been exhibited at the Rubin Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Green-Wood Cemetery, and the American School in London, and has been created in over 5,000 cities worldwide.

Collaborative Bio — Long

(200 words max)

Candy Chang and James A. Reeves collaborate on public installations that introduce new rituals into our shared spaces. Located in diverse settings such as city plazas, vacant storefronts, and cemeteries, their work merges participatory art with site-specific video installations that collect and display handwritten responses from visitors. Their recent project, After the End, “provides a place for anyone suffering loss or battered by contemporary life to mourn, meditate and perhaps heal a little” (The New York Times).

Trained in urban planning, architecture, and design, Chang is best known for creating Before I Die, an installation in over 5,000 cities and 100 countries. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and SFMOMA. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation and is a TED Senior Fellow and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Reeves is a writer, artist, and educator; his first book, The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir (W. W. Norton), documents fifty-thousand miles through America, and he is an assistant professor at The New School.

Their collaborative work has been exhibited at the Rubin Museum, Annenberg Space for Photography, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Mint Museum, and Broad Museum at Michigan State University.

Lead Applicant Bio — Short (Candy Chang)

(50 words max)

Through participatory public installations around the world, Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang creates work that uncovers the complexity of our inner lives. She is the steward of hundreds of thousands of handwritten reflections on the human condition and is a TED Senior Fellow and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Lead Applicant Bio — Long (Candy Chang)

(200 words max)

Through the activation of public spaces around the world, Taiwanese-American artist Candy Chang creates work that uncovers the complexity of our inner lives. Her practice encompasses participatory public installations of anonymous, handwritten reflections, as well as compositions of select responses through painting and mixed media. She is the steward of over one million anxieties, hopes, pains, and moments of grace in the 21st century.

She is best known for her 2011 participatory artwork Before I Die, which reimagines the ways the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and meaning. Over 5,000 installations have been created by communities in over 100 countries, and The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever.” She has created installations on emotional health with Art Production Fund, Rubin Museum of Art, and Green-Wood Cemetery.

She is a recipient of the TED Senior Fellowship, Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, and Tony Goldman Visionary Artist Award. She was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and one of the Top 100 Leaders in Public Interest Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Oakland Museum of California, and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Round I Work Sample

Recommendation: Submit an image sample (up to 5 images as a single PDF) from a completed past work. Strongest candidates from your portfolio:

1. After the End (2021, Green-Wood Cemetery) — The strongest option. Closest in tone and ambition to The Breathing Room: an immersive, contemplative installation in an unconventional space featuring handwritten public reflections and atmospheric lighting. NYT Critic’s Pick provides strong external validation.

2. Light the Barricades — Another strong option if you want to emphasize the large-scale, environmental quality of your installations.

Work Sample Caption (up to 100 words / 750 characters): After the End, 2021. Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. Wood, LED lights, projectors, speakers, paper, pens. An immersive installation in a 19th-century cemetery chapel where visitors wrote anonymous reflections on endings and beginnings. Over 5,000 handwritten testimonies were illuminated across the interior, accompanied by a video and ambient soundscape. The installation was open for three months and drew visitors from across New York City. Named a New York Times Critic’s Pick, the project exemplifies our practice of transforming unconventional spaces into contemplative environments for collective reflection.

Notes & Reminders

• Deadline: April 2, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET
• Grant amount to request: $35,000 (within your preferred $30K–$40K range; signals strong but not total reliance on CC funding, given existing GCAC and OAC grants)
• Resume: Submit lead applicant resume only (Candy Chang). Use most recent CV.
• Artist website: candychang.com (optional but recommended)
• Work sample file: Name should be under 30 characters (e.g., “AfterTheEnd.pdf”)
• Eligibility check: Confirm neither applicant has previously received a Creative Capital Award. The 2025 application (Ritual Field, individual) and 2023 application (The Last Station, collaborative) were different projects — reapplying with a new project is permitted.
• Project must not premiere before July 1, 2027: The September 2027 opening at McConnell satisfies this requirement.

Items Needed Before Submission

• [ ] Finalize and review all text (word/character counts confirmed below)
• [ ] Prepare work sample as single multi-page PDF (up to 5 images, max 5MB)
• [ ] Write work sample caption (100 words max)
• [ ] Upload Candy Chang’s most recent CV/resume as PDF
• [ ] Complete applicant information in the online portal
• [ ] Select primary discipline (Visual Arts) and sub-disciplines

Word/Character Count Reference