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[MAYA LIN: DISAPPEARING BODIES OF WATER]

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I was going to become a field zoologist

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and I took a sidetrack into art and architecture.

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I was brought up in the 60s--child of the 60s--

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so, whether I was petitioning to boycott Japan for the whaling industry,

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or petitioning to ban steel traps,

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I was out in the parking lot in Athens, Ohio,

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sort of being a bit of an activist.

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The discussion was out of how much damage

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we were doing as a species to the rest of the planet.

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It's really personal, and I love the environment.

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I love the world around us.

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"Red Sea" (2006)

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In a previous show, I had done these bodies of water--

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like the Caspian, the Red Sea, and the Black Sea.

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So, I'm going to be cutting into stone, this time,

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these disappearing bodies of water.

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What we've got today of the Arctic Ice Shelf

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versus what it was like in 1980.

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This is Lake Chad which, again,

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all that's left of Lake Chad is this,

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and so at this point, we start with drawings,

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we end up putting it into the computer,

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and it will all be cut in stone.

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It's sort of in between mechanized and then hand worn--

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or worn out--so it gets to be a little bit softer on the edges.

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I love the smaller-scale works because

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I can make them here with my team.

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They're both artists and architects working for me,

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but the architectural assistants, they're the only ones

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that can take this data from the map makers,

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convert it, and then send it to the printers.

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This is Nick Croft, by the way.

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Can you just walk them through some of the analysis

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and studies that have to go on?

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[Nick Croft, Studio Assistant]

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[CROFT] Well, a lot of it is finding data of geographical places

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or locations in the world.

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So, a lot of the time, we'll look to the Internet.

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We'll take it all and we'll try to make a three-dimensional surface

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in the computer program

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and then make mock ups at various scales,

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or do different studies of the terrain and its surface quality.

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[LIN] Because so much of what I do ends up being

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through the computer to analyze the data and information.

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The thing I'm always wary of is,

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"Oh, what's the difference between whether it's in an art museum

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versus a science museum?"

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And that's where it's tricky.

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It's not really a representation--it is its own thing.

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I'm as much interested in the form making that I'm doing,

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as well as getting you to think about

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what we're doing to the world around us.