Maya Lin at D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery

Those of you traveling to our nation’s capital in the upcoming months should grab a pencil (or iPhone, BlackBerry, or whatever else you tech-savvy travelers use) and add a trip to see a curvaceous indoor hill constructed of approximately 55,000 sustainably sourced 2×4 wood pieces to your itinerary. Allow me to explain…

Maya Lin‘s (think the Eleven Minute Line in Wanas, Sweden, or the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here in D.C.) new exhibition, Systematic Landscapes, has found a temporary home in the recently renovated Corcoran Gallery of Art. IT got a sneak peak before the exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, March 14. Find out what’s in store after the break.

Systematic Landscapes, which will be at the Corcoran March 14 through July 12, 2009, “explores how people perceive and experience the landscape in a time of heightened technological influence and environmental awareness.”

What exactly does that mean?

Well, in a nutshell, Lin analyzes the natural world using modern technology– satellite images, digital mapping, topography, etc–and presents that data in beautiful, three-dimensional forms such as the aforementioned hill (right).

“These works are asking us to pay close attention to the world around us,” says Lin.

And they succeed. Whether you are analyzing topographic relief maps carved into the pages of an atlas, or an entire room transformed into a Rocky Mountain landscape constructed of pine particleboard (top), the works will certainly demand your close attention. Each is beautiful, painstakingly accurate, and all the more powerful because it represents a real landform.

The exhibition drives home an important point: modernization and natural landscapes don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, modern technologies can broaden our appreciation of natural beauty, and inspire us to preserve it.

Visitors can also register to attend a series of lectures on related issues throughout March and April.

Photos by Rachael Dunlap