A Call to Action on the Environment
Maya Lin's video still: Photo credit--Creative Time and the What is Missing? Foundation.
The world-renowned designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Maya Lin, has created what she calls her fifth and last memorial, a series of four videos about mass extinction precipitated by the degradation of natural habitats. These videos, along with an expanded multi-media project, entitled What Is Missing?, once again reinvents our understanding of what a memorial can be.
Lin traveled the world—from Florida’s Everglades to the Białowieża Forest in Poland and on to China—to explore and document disappearing species and their habitats. Her global explorations of fragile environments were funded by Creative Time, a New York-based organization supporting innovative public arts projects, and a grantee of the Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund.
Every 20 minutes a distinct living species of plant or animal disappears.
More than a simple video presentation, What is Missing? consists of traveling art exhibitions, a printed and digital book, and other forms, linked through the project's website (whatismissing.net). Lin’s work, by existing in multiple forms on multiple sites at the same time, challenges the conventional notion that memorials must be singular, static objects.
“There is no question that Maya Lin is tackling one of the most critical environmental challenges facing all of us today,” says Anne Pasternak, President and Artistic Director of Creative Time, "how to save fragile habitats around the globe.”
What is Missing? is a call to action. Lin’s videos show what is disappearing right under our noses: sounds of songbirds, one in three amphibians. Every 20 minutes a distinct living species of plant or animal disappears. Through a network of collaborations with scientific and art institutions, environmental groups, as well as writers and multimedia artists, Lin aims to reveal how people’s everyday actions and attitudes can not only damage the environment, but how they can save it, too.
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Don't miss the video displayed on Times Square billboard in April 2010: