The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Summary: Architectural drawing showing memorial as plan and perspective includes textual description.Ĭontributor Names: Lin, Maya Ying, architect This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. VELTMAN: Maya Lin might never get truly used to living in the public eye, but her works continue to grab the public's attention and, she hopes, the public's activism, too.Ĭopyright © 2022 NPR. I mean, I was a little, like, mortified by it. VELTMAN: Lin says she likes what the National Portrait Gallery has done with this biographical show, though she's still a bit squeamish about being the center of attention. How do we make it personal? Because I think you have to, in the end, communicate not just the facts, but you have to get people to feel. LIN: We hear, we read, we understand - it's a little abstract. VELTMAN: Maya Lin says the best way to inspire people to action is through this kind of empathy. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: In my grandfather's town in Spain, there was a fire this summer that led to a lot of the wildlife and farms to be lost. And currently, a major landfill company is trying to build a landfill right next to it. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: In New Hampshire, there's a lake called Forest Lake. They attach them to a large vinyl map on the wall, which is part of "What Is Missing?," Lin's multifaceted climate change project VELTMAN: On a recent morning, students visiting the National Portrait Gallery's "One Life: Maya Lin" show jot down memories of favorite places now lost to environmental destruction. She made these when she was a high school student. They reflect her lifelong love of the natural world. VELTMAN: Then there's the glass case with a pair of tiny, frolicking deer crafted by the artist out of silver. MOSS: And the reason why she liked to wear it around was to hide her eyes from the press. There's the gray brimmed wool hat Lin wore when she was going through the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial mess. VELTMAN: It also offers visitors a glimpse into that private life. VELTMAN: The exhibition traces Lin's life from her idyllic Ohio childhood through her work on the many buildings and public art projects she's designed all over the world, to accolades like earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. And the story of your persistence and resilience is one that would inspire young people. We have a lot of school groups who come through. Curator Dorothy Moss made the case.ĭOROTHY MOSS: And I said, this is the Smithsonian. VELTMAN: So it took quite a bit of persuading to get the artist to agree to this first-ever exhibition focusing on her life. LIN: Part of the controversy was my age, my race, my gender. VELTMAN: When the camera pans to close-ups of Lin, you can see the then-21-year-old daughter of Chinese immigrants trying to maintain a brave face. TOM CARHART: One needs no artistic education to see this memorial design for what it is - a black scar. Fine Arts Commission meeting in 1981 shows Vietnam vet Tom Carhart sounding off from the podium. She was still an undergraduate at Yale in 1981 when her sleek, understated design in black granite for the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial beat out more than 1,400 other submissions and sparked a pitiless backlash. Lin is 63 now, but her desire to keep her private life to herself dates back at least to her early 20s. VELTMAN: Her works include the Civil Rights Memorial in Alabama, the Langston Hughes Library in Tennessee, and "What Is Missing?," the massive ongoing environmental activism project she launched in 2009. MAYA LIN: I've always sort of felt my works are public, but I'm not. NPR's Chloe Veltman explores the show on Maya Lin.ĬHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: Maya Lin doesn't much like being under the spotlight. The museum's latest subject is alive to see it. That's how it was for Sylvia Plath, Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King. When the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery gives an exhibition on some famous person's life, it's usually a posthumous honor.
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