Maya Lin, Landscape Amnesia

Maya Lin, 2009

Maya Lin, designer of the deeply moving Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is exhibiting in DC for the first time in 15 years. Her exhibit, titled "Systematic Landscapes," opened this Saturday at the Corcoran Art Gallery and runs through July 12. This article in the Washington Post provides helpful perspective on her life after the Vietnam Memorial and her maturing work.

What also caught our imagination is her next project called, "What is Missing?"

It will be dedicated to extinct and endangered species, and to threatened habitats. More subtly, it will highlight "landscape amnesia" and "shifting base lines," the notions that we don't know what is missing because we have forgotten the way things were -- the lost sound of songbirds in the yard when we were children.

Where will this memorial be? Nowhere, everywhere, says Lin..."Let's rethink what a monument can be, and what if a monument can, in a funny way, be formless," she says. "A memorial that can go wherever it wants to go. It's basically free."

It is a fascinating idea. Lin claims this will be her last memorial. We offered this post "Maya Lin, Artist or Architect?" in November 2008. A video of her accompanies the post along with several links to deeper information about her.