Interview

© Nova Starling 2020

Maya Lin

"We are part of a collective unconsciousness,

connected to one another by our works,

 images, thoughts and writings.

We communicate to future generations

what we are, who we are and what we have been,

hopefully influencing for the better,

what we will become."

What About Maya Lin

MAYA IS AN DESIGNER & ENVIRONMENTALIST
"Confluence Project" 
"Merging History, Process and Their Legacy"

MAYA LIN is most well known for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. winning a national competition while still an undergraduate at Yale.

One of her current commissions is the Confluence Project, the focus of this painting. It is a series of six large scale art / landscape installations along the Columbia River in which Lin has used the historic journey of Lewis and Clark through this place as a 'lens' giving insight into the physical and cultural histories of these sites. It concerns the indigeneous people and ecology of the area as they have been affected by the growth of civilization.  Its purpose is to transform our understanding of what we have been so that we can build a lasting stewardship into the future.

Although Maya was not available for an in person interview I did visit the 6 sites along a 438 mile stretch of the Columbia River through Oregon and Washington. And I met with its founding director, Jane Jacobsen, who gave me the full history of the project.

MAYA SAYS ABOUT HER ART: "I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me."

MAYA SAYS ON PEACE: "I believe that peace will only come when we learn to live on this planet in a way that allows all other creatures to exist alongside us."

MAYA SAYS ON HISTORY: "If we forget what used to be, then we've lost an ability to really be sensitive to our surroundings."

MAYA SAYS ON TIME: "What if you were to think of a place not as a still fixed point but rather as a moving fluid site? We have, I believe, a responsibility to live in a way that allows for generations to come."

Find out more about Maya by listening to her Interview and reading her Bio and Quotes.

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