What’s Hidden Under the Laurentide
Under the Laurentide (granite, water | 2014)
Renowned artist and architect Maya Lin is “constantly exploring and revealing aspects of the natural world [such as] places that are hidden beneath the surface of the water…”
Lin has always been fascinated by the movement of water. Best known for her underdog design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., much of her work is inspired by one’s connection and responsibility to landscapes and the environment. President Barack Obama awarded Lin the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the nation’s highest civilian award, for “bringing awareness to the planet’s loss of habitat and biodiversity.”
Chiseled from Chelmsford granite stone carved at Riverside Stone Company in Seekonk, MA just beyond the Rhode Island border, the surface is a 3D contour rendering of the topography of the Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island’s largest water source. Small openings gently pump water across the stone terrain and through glass dams that are placed at the edges of the table, where water naturally leaves the Bay.
The piece is named after the Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered most of North America over 20,000 years ago which shaped the Narragansett Bay and landscape of the present-day Northeast. Today, widespread pollution and rising sea levels threaten the Bay and its surrounding coastline. Thus, Under the Laurentide is a striking reminder of the reality of climate change and the importance of the work being done at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.
As its title suggests, Under the Laurentide seeks to uncover hidden terrain that lay beneath an ice sheet for thousands of years and to provoke viewers to think about their connection to the land they inhabit. Lin reflected, “I hope they walk away from it with a curiosity and an awareness of the landscape that is quite literally underfoot.” At Brown, portraits -- of people, of water and land, of loss, of learning and pride -- are hidden all around us, waiting to be discovered. Carve beneath the surface of what you know -- juxtapose objects, read into labels, question history. You will be surprised and empowered by what you will discover.
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