What’s It Like To Exist On The Boundaries?

This week I watched a video about an American artist called <a href="https://www.mayalinstudio.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Maya Lin</a>. She’s a sculptor and an architect, and she has had quite a brilliant career. In 2016 Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work, which is the highest American civilian honour. So she’s a big deal. Lin is perhaps best known for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., but she has been involved in lots of other standout projects over the years. Her work is about our relationship with the natural environment. She describes herself as an environmental activist, and it’s her mission to contribute to the battle that’s under way to change our current path in the climate crisis. Last year, for example, she created an installation in Madison Square Park in the middle of New York called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DHpGPwHm2I&t=14s" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Ghost Forest</a>. In nature a ‘ghost forest’ is the evidence of a dead woodland that was once vibrant. She shipped in 49 dying Atlantic white cedar trees from the East Coast of America. That particular tree is now an endangered species because of logging practices and extreme weather events. So visitors would walk through this dead ‘forest’ of trees in a park with living trees all around it. Lin wanted to communicate starkly the impact of climate change that is going on somewhere else that people who live in an urban environment don’t see. <a href="https://medium.com/counterarts/whats-it-like-to-exist-on-the-boundaries-7eb45b014869">Website</a>