We know under Nebraska there is an underground aquifer that is probably underneath the whole state, but what form does it take? I kind of want to focus on that, for almost political means, because we keep digging more wells. We're not replenishing, and we're having a crisis in water around the world. But how do you visualize it? I don't know, so I know what I want to study.

My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground.

I'm as much interested in the form-making as well as getting you to think about what we're doing to the world around us.

I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.

war is not just a victory or loss ... People die.

I do think the smaller-scale studio works have that incredible love of data crunching, whereas I would say the large-scale earthworks tend to be much more stripped-down. With the mappings, as connected as they are to a much more analytical idea, what's a map? And can I make a map about time? I think the first time was Hurricane Sandy, the flood plane; a moment in time, but indelibly marked on any of us who were in the city. Mapping time is something that I'm really interested in.

My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar.