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The Vietnam War Memorial was one of the most controversial monuments of its time. See “Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision” on POV – July 22 at 10pm


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POV

“Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision”

Lin is a 1977 Athens, Ohio High School graduate 

Tuesday, July 22 at 10:00 pm

 

A young Asian woman kneels and holds her hands out as it pushing something down. She has black hair with bangs pulled into a pony tail. She wear a green turtleneck sweater with blue jeans and black cowboy books. The background is blurry but shows a large warehouse space with large windows and pale light pouring in.
Maya Lin examining inverted water table being fabricated for the Civil Rights Memorial she designed to be installed in Montgomery, Alabama. She is pictured here at the granite fabricator in Barre, Vermont in 1988.

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision tells the gripping drama behind the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the story of a young woman and the power of art to provoke important conversations surrounding issues of national memory, mourning, service, and sacrifice. Freida Lee Mock shows how an unknown architecture student was able to create, against great odds and intense political opposition, stunning memorials with a profound impact on the American people. Lin’s memorials are described as “…places of pilgrimage, where merely to touch seems to heal long broken hearts, reconciling armies of veterans, assuaging historic wounds of activists…she has rendered stones into compelling American shrines.”

Using Maya Lin’s first-person account, the film explains the creative and political process by which she conceived and developed these monumental projects over a decade of work. Maya Lin became a prominent designer at the age of 21 by winning the largest design competition in American history to construct the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, now considered to be one of the greatest cultural achievements of the 20th century. Exploring art, politics, and censorship in the creative process, the film poses questions about the intersection of art and politics, as well as artistic freedom in the face of public pressure.

An older Black couple stand in the center of the image against a black wall that is engraved with the partial text of a Civil Rights statement attributed to MKL, Jr that reads "UNTIL JUSTICE ROLLS...AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE..." On the left, a woman with short gray hair and a pink jacket stands next to a main in a white jacket and black cap both reach out to touch a pool of water in front of them.
Visitors touching the water table at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, designed by Maya Lin. The water table contains a timeline of significant events from the civil rights movement engraved in its surface.

“POV’s encore presentation of Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision is the perfect platform for a new generation of public television viewers to discover the extraordinary work of the global artist Maya Lin,” said director Freida Lee Mock. “For those who saw her in her 20s when the film premiered on PBS thirty years ago, this encore broadcast confirms that they witnessed the creative foundations of an artist of singular vision. I’m very excited for viewers to experience Maya Lin’s impact and story.”

“Maya Lin reimagined what a memorial can look like with a minimalist approach that, somehow, captured all the pain and sacrifice of a generation,” said Chris White, Executive Producer, POV. “Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision illustrates how art can push the needle towards change. We’re eager for a new generation of Americans to discover, after 30 years, how resonant this film remains.”

Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision premiered in Beverly Hills in 1994 and won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Feature Documentary Film at the 1995 Academy Awards® ceremony. It was also an official selection at the 1995 Chicago International Film Festival and the Hawaii International Film Festival.