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Maya Lin page contribution[edit]

Introduction[edit]

Although Lin’s most well known sculptures and architectural work are historical memorials, she also works to memorialize nature through her environmentally themed works. In creating works which deal with the depleting environment,  Lin aims to raise awareness for the environment for audiences in urban spaces.

Later Work[edit]

According to Lin, art should be an act of every individual that is willing to say something new and that which is not quite familiar. Lin describes her creative process as having a very important writing and verbal component. She first imagines an artwork verbally in order to understand its concepts and meanings. She believes that gathering ideas and information is especially vital in architecture, which focuses on humanity and life and requires a well-rounded mind. When a project comes her way, she tries to "understand the definition (of the site) in a verbal before finding the form to understand what a piece is conceptually and what its nature should be even before visiting the site".[citation needed] In her historical memorials (Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Women’s Table, and the Civil Rights Memorial), Lin focuses on the chronological aspect of what she is memorializing. This theme is shown once again in her art memorializing the changing environment, and charting the depletion of bodies of water[1]. Lin also explores themes of juxtaposing materials and a fusion of opposites, stating "I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west.... I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet. . .existing not on either side but on the line that divides"[2].

Lin, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City, has designed numerous projects, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the Wave Field outdoor installation at the University of Michigan (1995).

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In 1995, Lin completed Wave Field, located at the University of Michigan. Lin was inspired by diagrams of fluids in motion, and photographs of ocean waves. She was intrigued by the idea of capturing and freezing the motion of water, and wished to capture that movement in the earth rather than through photography. This was Lin's first experience with earthworks[3].

In 2004, Lin completed an earthwork Eleven Minute Line, located in Sweden and designed for the Wanås Foundation. Lin draws inspiration from the Serpent Mounds (Native American burial mounds) located in her home state, Ohio. It is meant to be a walkway for the viewers to experience, taking eleven minutes to complete[4]. The earthwork is also inspired by Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty.

In 2006, Maya Lin completed Waterline, composed of aluminum tubing and paint. Lin describes the piece as a drawing instead of a sculpture. It is a to-scale representation of the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and is installed do viewers may walk underneath the underwater mountain range. There is a purposeful ambiguity to where the actual water line is in relation to the mountain range, in order to highlight the viewer's relationship to the environment and their effect on bodies of water.[5][6]

Also in 2006, Lin completed her Bodies of Water series, which included representations of 3 bodies of water, The Black Sea, The Caspian Sea, and The Red Sea. Each sculpture is made of layers of birch plywood, and are to-scale representations of 3 endangered bodies of water. The sculptures are balanced on the deepest point of the sea. Lin wishes to call attention to the "unseen ecosystems" which people continue to pollute[7].

In 2008, Lin completed a 30-ton sculpture called 2 x 4 Landscape, composed of 70,000 pieces of wood, which was exhibited at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California. The sculpture itself is evocative of the swelling movement of water, which is juxtaposed with the dry materiality of the lumber pieces. According to Lin, 2 x 4 Landscape was her attempt to bring the experience of Wavefield (1995) indoors. The 2 x 4 pieces are also meant to be reminiscent of pixels, to evoke the "virtual or digital space that we are increasingly occupying"[8].

In 2008 her projects included an installation, called Storm King Wavefield, at the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York near the Catskills. It is the center's first earthwork, spanning 4 acres of land, and is a larger version of her original Wave Field (1995), and focuses on the "fusion of opposites"[9], comparing the motion of water to the material of the earth.

Environmental Concerns[edit]

Lin has stated that environmental issues have been a concern of hers since she was very young, and she dedicated much of her time at Yale University to environmental activism[10]. Much of her later work, (after her work on memorials) focuses on the relationship we have with the environment around us, which she displays in earthworks, sculptures, and installations. Lin's work centers around the concept of uncovering "hidden histories", bringing attention to landscapes and environments which would otherwise be inaccessible to her viewers, and "deploys the concept to discuss the inextricable relationship between nature and the built environment"[11]. Lin's focus on this relationship highlights the impact humanity has on the environment, and draws attention to her concerns such as global warming, endangered bodies of water, and animal extinction/endangerment. These issues are explored in what Lin calls her latest memorial, What Is Missing?.

Lin also sits on the Natural Resources Defense Council board of trustees. She constructs her works to have a minimal effect on the environment, utilizing recycled and sustainable materials, minimizes carbon emissions, and avoids damage to the landscapes/ecosystems she works upon[12].

Chronological list of works[edit]

(continuation of intro to this section) In doing so, Lin focuses on memorializing concepts of time periods instead of direct representations of figures, creating an abstract sculptures and installations.

  1. ^ TenBrink, Marisa. "Maya Lin’s Environmental Installations: Bringing the Outside In.", 2
  2. ^ Deitsch, Dina. "Maya Lin's Perpetual Landscapes and Storm King Wavefield." Woman's Art Journal 30, no. 1 (2009): 4
  3. ^ Deitsch, Dina. "Maya Lin's Perpetual Landscapes and Storm King Wavefield." Woman's Art Journal 30, no. 1 (2009), 6
  4. ^ Deitsch, Dina. "Maya Lin's Perpetual Landscapes and Storm King Wavefield." Woman's Art Journal 30, no. 1 (2009): 6
  5. ^ Min, Susette. "Entropic Designs: A Review of Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes and Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970 at the De Young Museum." American Quarterly 61, no. 1 (2009): 198
  6. ^ TenBrink, Marisa. "Maya Lin’s Environmental Installations: Bringing the Outside In.", 7
  7. ^ TenBrink, Marisa. "Maya Lin’s Environmental Installations: Bringing the Outside In.", 10
  8. ^ TenBrink, Marisa. "Maya Lin’s Environmental Installations: Bringing the Outside In." , 4
  9. ^ Deitsch, Dina. "Maya Lin's Perpetual Landscapes and Storm King Wavefield." Woman's Art Journal 30, no. 1 (2009), 3
  10. ^ Munro, Eleanor C. Originals: American women artists. Boulder, CO: Da Capo Press, 2000.
  11. ^ Min, Susette. "Entropic Designs: A Review of Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes and Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970 at the De Young Museum." American Quarterly 61, no. 1 (2009): 193-215.
  12. ^ Mendelsohn, Meredith. "Maya Lin." Art + Auction 33, no. 4 (December 2009): 40-90. Art & Architecture Source, EBSCOhost (accessed April 14, 2017).
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