The Surface of Memory: Memorial Walls and the Legacy of Maya Lin

Abstract

Recent years have seen an overwhelming increase in the number of memorials being designed and constructed all over the world. Individuals, famous, infamous and anonymous; organisations, official and unofficial; wars, civil and world-wide; injustices, atrocities; upheavals and milestones, political, social and economic; everything and anything is being memorialised in a variety of different forms. This commemoration craze and the reasons for it are popular topics, but what of the forms themselves? Which is the most effective? This thesis will argue that the answer to this question is the form of the memorial wall; that the wall has stood the test of time and emerged as the most versatile, accessible and therefore effective, memorial form. It will discuss this within the context of the seminal work in memorial culture, Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., and justify this specific memorial wall’s status as the exemplar of public and memorial art.