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Maya Lin
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Maya Ying Lin (; born October 5, 1959) is an American artist and architect who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. Her best-known work is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Lin, a Chinese American, was born in Athens, Ohio, one year after her parents arrived to the United States from China. Her father, Henry Huan Lin, was a ceramist and former dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts, and her mother, Julia Ming Lin, was a Professor of Literature at Ohio University.
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Encyclopedia
Maya Ying Lin (; born October 5, 1959) is an American artist and architect who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. Her best-known work is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Personal life
Maya Lin, a Chinese American, was born in Athens, Ohio, one year after her parents arrived to the United States from China. Her father, Henry Huan Lin, was a ceramist and former dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts, and her mother, Julia Ming Lin, was a Professor of Literature at Ohio University. She is the niece of Lin Huiyin, who is said to be the first female architect in China. Lin studied at Yale University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1981 and a Master of Architecture degree in 1986. She has also been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Yale, Harvard University, Williams College, and Smith College. She is married to Daniel Wolf, a New York photography dealer. They have two daughters, India and Rachel.
Lin, having grown up surrounded by white people, has said that she "didn't even realize" she is Chinese until later in life, and that it wasn't until her 30s that she had a desire to understand her cultural background. Commenting on her design of a new home for the Museum of Chinese in America near New York City's Chinatown, Lin attached a personal significance to the project being a Chinese-related project because she wanted her two daughters to "know that part of their heritage."
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
In 1981, at age 21 and while still an undergraduate, Lin won a public design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, beating out 1,420 other competition submissions. The black cut-stone masonry wall, with the names of 58,253 fallen soldiers carved into its face, was completed in late October 1982 and dedicated on November 13, 1982. The wall is granite and V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument.
Lin's conception was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of the loss of the soldiers. The design was initially controversial for what was an unconventional and non-traditional design for a war memorial. Opponents of the design also voiced objection because of Lin's Asian heritage. However, the memorial has since become an important pilgrimage site for relatives and friends of the American military casualties in Vietnam, and personal tokens and mementos are left at the wall daily in their memory.
Lin believes that if the competition had not been "blind", with designs submitted by number instead of name, she "never would have won." Lin defended her design in front of the United States Congress, and eventually a compromise was reached. A bronze statue of a group of soldiers and an American flag was placed off to one side of the monument as a result.
Work after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
in San Francisco, 2009]]
Lin, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City, went on to design other structures, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the Wave Field at the University of Michigan (1995).
In 1994, she was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. The title comes from an address she gave at Yale where she speaks of the monument design process.
In 2000, Lin re-emerged in the public life with a book Boundaries. Also in 2000, she agreed to act as the artist and architect for the Confluence Project, a series of outdoor installations at historical points along the Columbia River and Snake River in the state of Washington. This is the largest and longest project that she has undertaken so far.
In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University (Upon whose campus sits another of Lin's designs: the Women's Table - designed to commemorate the role of women at Yale University.), in an unusually public contest. Her opponent was W. David Lee, a local New Haven minister and graduate of the Yale Divinity School who was running on a platform to build ties to the community with the support of Yale's unionized employees. Lin was supported by Yale's President Richard Levin, other members of the Yale Corporation, and was the officially endorsed candidate of the Association of Yale Alumni.
In 2003, Lin served on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. A trend toward minimalism and abstraction was noted among the entrants, finalists, and current World Trade Center Memorial.
In 2005, Lin was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
Lin was commissioned by Ohio University to design what is known as punch card park, a landscape literally designed to resemble a punch card, supposedly based on Lin's memories of their early use in universities. The park is a large open space with rectangular mounds and voids on the ground. At first the park was criticized for being relatively uninviting (with punchcard pits promoting mosquito infestation and preventing safe active recreation) and lacked trees or structures to shade students from the sun. In addition, from the ground level, it is difficult to tell what the park is supposed to look like, though from an aerial view it does resemble a punch card. Although the university since planted trees around the park's perimeter in an attempt to make it a more popular place for students to gather, this has been unsuccessful.
In 2008, Lin completed a 30-ton sculpture called "2 x 4 Landscape," which is on exhibit at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California. Her current projects include an installation at the Storm King Art Center.
Bibliography
- Maya Lin: Topologies (Artist and the community) (1998) ISBN 1888826053
- Maya Lin: [American Academy in Rome, 10 dicembre 1998-21 febbraio 1999] (1998) ISBN 8843568329
- Timetable: Maya Lin (2000) ASIN B000PT331Y (2002, ISBN 0937031194)
- Boundaries (2000) ISBN 0684834170 (2006, ISBN 0743299590)
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