I think I've always had an activist stance, yet at the same time, the other side of me - and this is where some people just don't get it, or they'd prefer it if the work was a lot uglier, a lot louder - I have this personality where I just want to put something out that's a fact and then let you interpret it. It's almost as if you might barely notice it, you might walk right by it, but you have to pay attention.
Maya LinI saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode.
Maya LinAn artist fights to retain the integrity of a work so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is and should be the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar.
Maya LinSometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.
Maya LinWhen I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family.
Maya LinI always give the analogy of the Earth at Night picture, of 7.3 billion of us, right? And everyone says, "Well, that's population." Well, if you took the entire world's population and you lived at the density of Manhattan proper - not a bad place to live - how much space do 7.3 billion people take up? The state of Colorado. At which point I end my lectures, because I want you to be thinking ... is this really a question of population, or is this a question of land use and resource consumption? And let's face it, the top 1.3 billion of us are doing all the damage. Sorry.
Maya Lin