Maya Lin’s Dismantled ‘Ghost Forest’ to Be Reborn as Boats

Rocking the Boat is a nonprofit organization that teaches students in Hunts Point about the great outdoors by building wooden boats and sailing them. The organization often sources its wood through donations, and after Murphy asked the Madison Square Park Conservancy about taking the trees, Rapaport and the artist agreed.

The conservancy devoted a portion of its budget to hiring Tri-Lox, a Brooklyn workshop specializing in wood. On Friday, a carpentry crew arrived at the park with a portable sawmill. As they felled the trees and stripped the bark, nearly a dozen students involved with Rocking the Boat watched and learned.

“This is the first time seeing how the trees get harvested,” said Mouctar Barry, 16, from the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx. He joined the group three years ago for an after school program and grew to love working on boats. Like many of the students, he was unfamiliar with Lin’s work until he learned of her donation. Then he started researching the artist’s other monuments and sculptures.

“It’s interesting how she harvested trees, and now we are using them,” Barry said. “We are giving the trees a new life and a new meaning.”

The situation was certainly unusual for the Madison Square Park Conservancy. “This is the first time an art piece has not left the park in one piece,” said Tom Reidy, the conservancy employee who organized the deinstallation.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/arts/design/maya-lin-rocking-the-boat.html