Maya Lin

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest, a towering stand of forty-nine haunting Atlantic white cedar trees, is a newly-commissioned public art work. Lin brings her vision as an artist and her agency as an environmental activist to this project, a memory of germination, vegetation, and abundance and a harsh symbol of the devastation of climate change. The height of each tree, around forty feet, overwhelms human scale and stands as a metaphor of the outsized impact of a looming environmental calamity. 

A series of virtual public events as well as in-person, socially distanced programs at the Park will complement the installation. These include a new soundscape composed by Lin in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that weaves together the calls and songs of endangered and extinct animals once native to the New York City area, as well as a series of meditative music performances inspired by nature and presented within the installation in conjunction with Carnegie Hall. The project will culminate in the fall with the planting of 1,000 native trees and shrubs in public natural area parks throughout each of New York City’s five boroughs. In addition to these programs, Madison Square Park Conservancy will host its sixth annual public art symposium on June 4, a dynamic virtual event exploring key issues raised by Ghost Forest, anchored by a keynote conversation with Maya Lin moderated by Andrew Revkin of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

To read more, please visit (opens in a new window) Artnet News, (opens in a new window) The New York Times, or Madison Square Park Conservancy's (opens in a new window) website.