Maya Lin- Video Review
What was the artist work about? Maya Lin is an architect and designer. Her work is very natural and simplistic, her designs are very simple but the content of her pieces of work are very deep. She is recognized for her landscape art. She expresses her work through objects she makes. This objects or architectural works she has done are all made so people all feel connected in the same way. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington Dc, are two black granite walls which are together linked and have engraved text in chronological order with the names of the men and women who gave up their live for this war. You see that she expresses the amount of sadness and depression in a simple black marble wall that represents much more than that; the color black represents the amount of pain people passed through this years of war and the names written in chronological order make the viewer see all the people that died and see that the person was marked in making the United States a peaceful country. The ideal she wants to express in her work is to make a place for individuals within the landscape that can connect to her artwork. The landscape art Lin makes are sculptures, parks, monuments, and architectural projects in every work of art she express the aspects of nature. In every piece of art is has done she reflects the great amount of interest she has with nature. Lin incorporates aspects of mature in her works because she feels that viewers have to think about the world we live in and the sympathetic existence that we have with nature. For example, the Civil Rights Memorial she made a sculpture of a “water table”. This water table is a flat rounded table and has the movement of water running through out the whole upper layer.

What purpose/reason does the work have for the artist/society? The purpose and reason that Maya Lin wants her work to prove to society and to herself is to address the critical and social issues of our time by giving out the message to stop war, racism and to promote gender equality. She wants to promote this by making everybody connect to the same feeling feel. The reason she makes her artwork like this is to connect people for example in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, society connects and acknowledge the amount of suffering this war brought to this country. I personally believe she also does this so society understands that we all are equal and can be judged because every human being has feelings. She demonstrated this to society when she won the contest of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She could have given up and she stand up to what she wanted to do for her coming from an Asian family. She also wants to prove this when she used the movement of water in the Civil Rights Memorial; water equals peace and water is movement meaning it will always move meaning society have to move on. She also proves this by putting a specific Martin Luther King quote and pointing out specific events that happened that happened, you see this while you are getting around the table. I think another purpose her work has is for society to understand that things pass for a cause and that we have to learn to accept what other past societies did and we have to learn from them. Maya Lin purpose is to show the human race throughout her art works that people were there to change history and we have to be grateful.

What do you think of the artist’s work? I think Maya Lin is a very talented artist. I did not no about her artwork, but I find it very interesting the way she develops her art pieces and always uses the essence of nature and always trying to connect people. What I really like about her is for example in this two memorials she develops this architectural structures which are so simple but have a great amount of meaning such as the rounded table, while you go around the table you come to understand why equality is so important and the importance of this movement. For example in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, there are two black granite walls, but the significance of it is that she wrote in a chronological order the people who died in this war; you as a watcher you get touched and sad because many innocent people were dying because a political decision that was taken place by a series of events done by the government. I enjoyed watching this video, because I was never interested in architectural sculptures and memorials, and at the end of the video I fond it very interesting. She makes these well-developed sculptures that are incredible to notify the amount of detail they have producing a great focal point and balance in each of her pieces. She makes her artwork very satisfying to watch and being a part of it; because you do not see this dramatic impact or something out of the regular you see something regular an object. An object that inspires you peace you can connect to her pieces of art, because just by touching it or looking at it you understand the message of the piece. I also really love the way she uses natural essences to connect with the person and planet earth.