Avalanche, 1998
Installation with glass
Dimensions variable
Maya Lin was born in Athens, OH in 1959. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from Yale College, graduating cum laude in 1981 and a Master of Architecture degree from the Yale University School of Architecture in 1986. Since her design for the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C., undertaken when she was an undergraduate at Yale, she has gone on to establish herself in both the art and architecture communities with her unique vision and sensibility, winning international acclaim for her site-specific art and architecture projects throughout the country.

Lin, whose work, encompasses the dualities of art and architecture, as well as the artist's own Asian-American heritage, has been the subject of a documentary film, Maya Lin-A Strong Clear Vision which won an Oscar, from the Academy Award of Motion Pictures, for best documentary in 1995. In 1996, she received the architecture prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and The LVMH Foundation's Science pour l'Art Award, in France. Additionally, she has been the recipient of the Presidential Design Award, The American Institute of Architects Honor Award, and the Henry Bacon Memorial Award. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded her a visual artist's grant, and she is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates in Fine Arts from Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University, Smith College and Williams College. She has taught and lectured at numerous institutions around the world, including the University of California at Berkeley, Quinghua University in Beijing, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Lin's recent projects include sculpture installments for, among others, the Rockefeller Foundation Headquarters in New York City, The Cleveland Public Library, The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle and two private collections. She currently lives and works in New York.