【4/12/2021】CAPA-NoVA Distinguished Chinese American Project
（Written by: Yuyan Zhou）
林璎（Maya Lin） born In 1959, is regarded as an American designer and artist. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
“It’s great to be seen as an artist, I feel privileged to be seen in that light.” Lin once said, “I think my start was a little unusual and I think being a woman, and being very young, made it extremely difficult. It was very, very prejudiced. (Referring to her experience winning the design competition) Now things have really begun to shift in a very exciting way, and there are real dialogues now about race, gender and inequities.”
As an artist, her focus was much on the environment, and her design voice has been very much locked into looking at the natural world. Even though she doesn’t see herself as a political artist. Yet, she use every opportunity to advocate those issues that she sees important. “I am not going to force an opinion on you. I need you to come to your own conclusions in your own experiences with it. In order to really advocate for change, I’m doing it through the memorials, through literally this hybrid creature between the architecture which is a functional art form, and the art.”
Her advice for students who are interested in becoming an artist is “Never get intimidated. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do what you know you need to do. You have to follow an inner truth as to who you are, how you in a way, and enjoying the exploration.”
For additional reading:
What It Takes
https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/
Maya Lin: WONDER Artist Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyiu4x5Vpec
【Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us! 】
