Our friends at KQED’s Spark have just released a brand-new film on renowned Art21 artist and architect, Maya Lin. The film follows her as she plans, constructs, and installs her sculptural work for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The site-specific piece is a topographical imagining of the San Francisco Bay. It is placed on the western facade of the new building designed by Renzo Piano, which is set to open to the public in September 2008.
In Lin’s recent artwork, she has explored new ways of looking at the landscape, utilizing topographical maps, sonar imaging, and other scientific data. It was this interest in the natural sciences, as well as a life-long passion for environmental conservation, that prompted Lin to respond to the call for proposals issued by the San Francisco Arts Commission and the California Academy of Sciences in 2006. This public art installation for the CAS will be the first permanent work by New York-based Lin in the City of San Francisco. Read more about the project on Lin’s Spark page here.
Watch a clip from Art:21 in which Maya Lin talks about the duality of being both an architect and an artist:
Find more information about Lin, as well as additional video clips and images on Art21’s PBS website at https://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/index.html