The class has viewed several examples of memorials, including Edgar Heap of Bird's Most Serene Republic memorial to those Native Americans who died in performance with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Wheel (the Sand Creek Memorial} at the Denver Art Museum as well as Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, Civil Rights Memorial.
Born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design to a national competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, D.C. Writing about the memorial, a black granite wedge that emerges from and disappears into the ground, she says it "does not force or dictate how you should think. In that sense it's very Eastern. . .. It reflects me and my parents." Her father was the Dean of Fine Arts at Ohio University, and her mother, Julia Chang Lin, is a professor of literature at Ohio University. "As the child of immigrants you have that sense of ‘Where are you? Where's home?'" notes Lin, "and of trying to make a home." Trained as an artist and architect, Lin's sculptures, parks, monuments and architectural projects are linked by a common ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape.
Maya Lin said that the Memorial was meant to help people confront their pain. What kinds of changes occur when emotional wounds begin to heal?
DISCUSS AND COMPARE Edgar Heap of Birds Most Serene Republic memorial and Wheel to Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial and the Civil Rights Memorial.
HOW DO THESE MEMORIALS AID IN THE HEALING PROCESS?
Following your discussion of Heap of Bird's and Lin's memorials, answer the questions below:
What is a memorial?
What should a memorial achieve?
What must an artist consider in designing a monument?