Facing our most uncomfortable thought patterns, including resentment, judgment of others, and doubt, can promote our mental health—but only if we take the time to do it. And that’s not easy in a modern world full of distractions, and at a moment when the national mood is anxious, angry, and uncertain.

In 2019 artists Candy Chang and James A. Reeves created three luminous, double-sided wall-like structures in public locations to help passersby contemplate those inner barriers to peace of mind.

The walls were installed for two weeks at three sites in Los Angeles: Grand Park in downtown LA (Resentment), the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica (Judgement), and outside the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park (Doubt). The three walls were later on view together as part of the exhibit W|alls: Defend, Divide, and the Divine at the Annenberg Space for Photography.

One side of the eight-by-twenty-seven-foot walls (each one actually a huge solar-powered light box) was labelled with one the three barriers, along with a long line of text relating a fable that illuminated the topic. On the other side, there were three stools on which visitors were invited to sit and contemplate relevant questions that popped up on the wall before them—Who do you judge unfairly and why? What is blocking your path? —while the image of an hourglass measured out five minutes of reflection time.

Presented by Chang and Reeves as “a modern ritual for these distracting times,” the project required close to a year of planning, but the light box/walls were fabricated by local company Front Signs in less than a month, including custom metal work and decals, printing, assembly, and installation.

“These emotions are largely universal, [and] they feel especially resonant today. They echo the psychosocial dynamics defining the current American mood. By reckoning with these barriers at a personal level, perhaps we can become more compassionate in our public life,” say the artists.

“Every day we are bombarded by so many distractions all the time that it’s really easy to neglect our emotional health, what really matters to us, what’s important to us, how we can be better for the people we love, the people around us, how we might be more in tune with the darker corners of our minds and where we can grow and change," Chang has said. "We thought about the wall both physically and emotionally, the wall as a place that prevents us from connecting with others or with ourselves, the wall as a site for ritual, and so that got us thinking: what if we had walls where we could stop and pause and reflect on our own inner obstructions?”