Eleven Minute Line, 2004
Earth Drawing #1
The Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden
217’ x 965' x 12'

Photography: Anders Norsell, courtesy Wanås Foundation

Somewhere between a line and a walk…

In this work, the Maya Lin was exploring the relationship between two- and three-dimensional space and the connection between prehistoric forms of the Americas and Europe.

In Southeastern Ohio, where the artist grew up, there exist many burial and effigy mounds from the time of the Hopewell and Adena tribes - between 1000BC and 700 AD. One of the most striking is a mound in the shape of a snake - the Serpent Mound. When European settlers first encountered these works and their accompanying artifacts, they were convinced that the forbears of the present day Native Americans could not have been sophisticated enough to produce them. They conjectured that a more “advanced” European culture had visited the Americas much earlier and left these works.

Perhaps it is the history of the origins of these forms that drew the artist to create a work that linking Europe and the Americas. The early burial mounds of both places have a formal similarity that interested the artist.

The artist was also interested in exploring the qualities of a line drawing, and how a two-dimensional mark is experienced three-dimensionally. The first ‘sketch’ existed outside of the Wanås castle as a gravel drawing. Then a topographic model of the site was created in order to translate that first sketch into a drawing to fit the pasture’s sloping landscape. It was “drawn” with an understanding that both reading it from the road and walking upon it would have to be equally balanced experiences.