Walk Writing by Amelia Bande
A part of Wanderings and Wonderings
May 27 and June 3, 2017
At Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield, Storm King Art Center
Writer and artist Amelia Bande will offer an outdoor musical lecture at Maya Lin's 2007-8 earthwork Storm King Wavefield. This program was developed as a project called Walk Writing, undertaken during Bande's 2016 residency at Shandaken: Storm King. Long walks produced a series of audio-text meditations on politics, art, and friendships, intertwined with reflections about the Storm King landscape and the sculptural works of the Art Center. She writes:
"On Earth Day, April 22, I wake up very late. I go on Facebook and someone has posted a live broadcast of the March for Science. Maya Lin is onstage speaking: I am an artist and environmentalist. In my work, I reveal aspects of the natural world that you might not be aware of. I was at Storm King only two days ago. At Lin's Storm King Wavefield, I thought of mountains and the sea as barriers and their correlation to geographical belonging, physical displacement and language. I was also thinking about preservation. Not only of the environment, but also of my interpersonal relationships. I kept on acting as if my friends moving away had no consequences. I want everybody to be as free as they can be, but I wonder if I was pushing people away by not expressing how important their actual presence was for me. What were the chances of Maya Lin appearing on my computer screen? ...awareness of what we are losing...plausible future scenarios that balance our needs with that of nature."
This work is presented with Storm King Art Center as part of their Wanderings and Wonderings series, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
As seen at the site-specific earthwork: Maya Lin, Storm King Wavefield, 2009, earth and grass, 240,000 square feet (11 acre site), Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York. © Maya Lin Studio, courtesy Pace Gallery.