Earth Day 2012: Maya Lin's "What Is Missing?"

Maya Lin and me discussing "What is Missing?" in 2008.

A few years ago, Maya Lin told me about her plans for a "last memorial," an ongoing, multimedia, multi-site project that unfolds every Earth Day. 

She calls it "What is Missing?" 

I wrote about one component, "Unchopping a Tree," back in 2009.

Another component is a global online memorial that Lin hopes will "connect us personally to what we are witnessing diminish or disappear from nature, in the hope that raising awareness about these poignant stories of loss will help spur action."

Last year, she quietly launched phase one: a Map of Memory. But, as Maya says, "to focus only on loss was too depressing, which is why we waited until this Earth Day to go public." 

The second phase is called Conservation in Action and features stories about ecological restoration and conservation around the world. 

On the site viewers can learn what is being done by conservation groups to protect what is missing before it is missing, including partners such as  Cornell Lab of Ornithology and World Wildlife Fund. 

"We are here to give people hope that so much is being done to help," says Lin.

Yesterday, Maya sent around a helpful guide for using the site:

Click on Time Travel  to go between map of past (the Map of Memory) and the present (Conservation in Action).  

Check out View in Time and View in Place  and see what happens.  

Then select Sort   to better understand the content.(On the Map of the Present, Red 's and green 's highlight conservation successes and disasters) we also allow you to see all the Core Videos we have produced. Those Core Video dots have a sound rollover. With over 600 historical entries on the Map of Memory, you can learn about what the world used to be like from an environmental standpoint.

Lin also wants this to be a truly interactive memorial, where you can add your own memory of what is missing for you -- a place that was important to you that is now paved over or a species that meant a lot to you that is no longer found where you remember it being. She also wants to know about the work you and others are doing to help save or restore a place that's important to you.

"What Is Missing?" Screenshot

Throughout her career, Maya Lin has challenged us to look at the world differently. Her art and architecture often use elements of the natural world to shake up our perception of what is around us. Her memorials have changed the way we think about memorials and how we interact with them and with our memories.


With "What is Missing?" Lin challenges us again to think differently about our relationship to the Earth and the species with which we share the planet.


This Earth Day, take stock of what is missing and spend some time on "What is Missing?" contributing your own memories.

Maya Lin's "Unchopping a Tree" from "What Is Missing?"

A few years ago, Maya Lin told me about a project she was conjuring. She said it would be her last memorial. I've been amazed and privileged to see it develop over the years.

Maya takes a complex subject and makes it simple. In her words:

What is Missing? will make the critical link between global warming concerns and habitat protection: if 20% of global warming emissions are caused by deforestation then What is Missing? will integrally connect these issues, asking the question:

Can we save two birds with one tree?

The project will have a number of components, including sound and media installations, permanently installed sculptures at select science institutions, and even some branded products.

With all the brouhaha going on at Copenhagen, it is refreshing to just let an artist challenge our way of thinking about this subject.

Here is Maya Lin's video "Unchopping a Tree," which premiered at the Copenhagen Climate Summit this week:



Maya Lin - Unchopping a Tree from What is Missing? Foundation on Vimeo.

For more information, visit What is Missing?

And here is a link to the poem by W.S. Merwin that inspired the title "Unchopping a Tree"

Review: Design for a Living World at the Cooper-Hewitt

Imagine sending 10 top designers out into the world to make something. Now imagine you give them just three criteria: it has to be wonderful, desirable, and...sustainable.

That's exactly what the Nature Conservancy did to create what is now an exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt museum in New York.

The designers, ranging from Yves Behar and Isaac Mizrahi to Maya Lin and Paulina Reyes from Kate Spade in New York were sent out to Nature Conservancy project sites from Maine to Alaska and from China to Bolivia. Each designer used materials found in the place and even employed local people to help fashion such useful objects as handbags, furniture, rugs, and jewelry.

Among my favorites from the exhibit: Maya Lin's red maple Terra Bench, Abbott Miller's FSC-certified wood chair, Mizrahi's salmon leather dress and matching shoes, Reyes'/Spade's wooden tiled handbag, and Ezri Tarazi's bamboo-totem wine racks and speaker tubes.

I also rather liked Hella Jongerius's failed experiment to find a design application for chicle latex from the Maya Forest of Mexico. You've got to admire her valiant efforts to transform this material, once the basis for most chewing gums, into a surface design element or even bonding material.

The exhibit is on view at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York through January 4, 2010.

For more information, visit nature.org/design or Cooper-Hewitt.

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