Silver River--Housatonic

Maya Ying Lin is a renowned Chinese-American artist and architect. Known as the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (1982), she has since worked on numerous public and site-specific works that reflect her interests in social and environmental issues. The sculpture by Lin in the middle of this gallery takes the form of an aerial view of the Housatonic River that runs close to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It is a river that Lin knows well from her days on the Yale Women’s Rowing crew. Cast in recycled silver, this simple yet eloquent sculpture is part of a project based on the topographic forms of the country’s rivers and waterways. In what she refers to as her “last memorial, ” this recent body of work is a tribute to environmental loss worldwide and aspects of the natural world that are disappearing before our eyes.