Press Releases

New Maya Lin Work Highlights Extinction

"What is Missing?" sculpture uses multimedia of endangered animals

September 17, 2009

Ithaca, NY—Maya Lin, the world-renowned artist who created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., revealed her latest work on September 17—an ambitious multimedia project that brings attention to the environmental crisis of extinction. The sculpture, called What is Missing?, uses sound and video of endangered species from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library archive. The sculpture is on display at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California.

Lin worked with the Cornell Lab's scientists and staff for two years to develop her unique vision for this work. "In What is Missing?, Maya Lin's genius is to juxtapose scientifically documented sounds, images, and facts in imaginative ways that connect individuals to a natural world that is indeed on the verge of going missing," said Cornell Lab director John Fitzpatrick. "We cannot imagine a more important use of the assets so carefully gathered and archived through the decades at the Cornell Lab."

The What is Missing? sculpture consists of a huge bronze and wood cone that shows multiple short videos featuring extinct, threatened, and endangered species and the habitats and ecosystems they need to survive. One video about noise pollution in the ocean used data from the Cornell Lab's Bioacoustics Research Program "to create a scene that makes people realize how loud the ocean is for any sonar-dependent marine animal," said Lin. Other videos depict "Sounds of Songbirds in Our Backyards" and "Rivers Running Freely to the Sea." Lin also used sounds and video of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Common Loon, humpback whales, prairie-chickens, sea turtles, pronghorns, and coral reefs from the Macaulay Library archive.

This is the first of several installations around the world in which Lin will continue the environmental theme begun with What is Missing?

More Information:

California Academy of Sciences Press Kit

Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a membership institution dedicated to interpreting and conserving the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Cornell Lab's web site

Image: What is Missing? Maya Lin Bronze, reclaimed redwood, laminated glass, and single-channel video with sound 8'6"h x 10'8"w x 19'2"l Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the California Academy of Sciences. Photo: Bruce Damonte Photography, Inc.