Maya Lin is famed both for her eclectic, environmentally oriented sculptures and for memorial projects, most notably the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Lin's design was selected in 1981, while she was still an undergraduate at Yale.

One of her newest projects is "Above and Below," a wire sculpture installed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art last fall as part of its Virginia B. Fairbanks Arts & Nature Park. It maps the contours of a 8100-foot underground section of the White River.

In late April, Lin, 48, spoke to a packed IMA audience, and took time to answer a few questions.

Did "Above and Below" turn out to be everything you expected it to be? Such a complex piece must have been hard to envision how it would look installed.

It was. I think because you've got a fairly powerful architectural surround around it, you didn't quite know how it would relate. And... there were very heavy lights that were just tough. It's almost why I didn't even think of doing this piece at first, because everyone was a little afraid of moving them. At a certain point I just realized I know what I want to do -- those lights have got to go. But it wasn't until we were actually installing with the fabricators that I realized that it would be able to be light enough and yet not be overpowered by the columns... I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

How did you learn about the underground formation, and what made you want to base your work on that?

My works as a rule have focused on getting people to pay attention to something around them in the natural environment... and say, 'Hey, something's going on,' or making you notice the simple beauty of a water-worn rock. I was a little stumped because Indiana is a little flat. ..... In a little bit of a fluke, one of my assistants is from Indianapolis. And she said, "Well, there isn't much above ground. It's just landscape. But look underground."... So I went spelunking at Blue Springs Cavern... It took a considerable amount of time to find an actual scale section of the cave that would fit within the 16-by-100-foot-long envelope. And that took model after model after model -- and working with the Blue Springs Cavern team, a cave geologist (and) two people from the U.S. Geologic Survey. Because we had to get the outline of the cave section of above water, and then to get the description of what the section is underwater...

We ended up hand-drawing over the data because in the end it is both inspired by and takes its lead shape from an actual existing place. But it also has to exist as an artwork. So by hand-drawing over the scientific data, it steps away from the science project, I hope, and becomes the act of the human hand making a drawing in three dimensions.

What was it like exploring the caves?

I'm not very afraid of the dark, but I don't want to go where it's damp and cold and pitch dark. So I brought all this spelunking equipment. I thought we'd be going in and wading in. And it turns out we canoed in. It was extremely nice. We saw three or four different sections. Some were wider than 16 feet wide. Some were way too narrow. So it literally was going through, and it was beautiful... I'd never been in a cave before, certainly never canoed into a cave. And it was pretty magical.

Have you always been fascinated by using technology to explore nature?

I've always been interested in science and nature and the environment. My work has always gravitated to it. Aerial views, just looking down fascinates me. Sonar mapping views of the ocean floor, another subject I've been really into...

One could go back to the 18th century, 19th century. Landscape painters -- before photography, they painted and represented the world as they saw it, but of course with the poetry and license of an artist. Then when photography came along... look at the impressionists, they begin to see it with much more expressionism and personality. Because in a funny way, photography became the true documentation.

I don't think I'm that much different from those artists that focused on presenting the natural world. It's just that we have more tools, whether it's a microscope, a sonar view of the floor, an aerial map, a view from NASA -- we have different ways of looking at and seeing the world around us. And I'm just trying to incorporate and use and manipulate those technologies in my work.

The talk you gave was titled "The Architecture of Nature." Tell me how the natural world and man-made one combine and collide in your mind.

The funny thing is, I didn't come up with that title. And I probably wouldn't have done that. Because I've chosen to build architecture as well as make art, but I've chosen to keep them separate. I actually love the differences between them...

Building architecture to me is like writing a novel, whereas making a work of art is like writing a poem. They are extremely different creative impulses... The mediums themselves I keep very separate. That's why in the lecture I brought up two works. One that I did in Minneapolis is called "The Character of the Hill Under Glass," where I manipulated the architectural setting and then inserted an art work inside.

("Above and Below') in that sense is also like that. I was commissioned to make a work of art out of doors. So I'm working off the architecture, but I'm setting myself distinctly apart from it. But then I couldn't resist kind of putting on my architecture hat and redesigning the flooring for (the balcony). Because it just seemed like it needed a little help.

Your Vietnam Veterans Memorial was controversial at the time, but has become one of the most visited and revered sites in the capital. What do you think changed the public's attitude?

The funny thing is the minute it was built, people's opinions of it changed, because they started reacting to it. Before it was built and they had heard about it, it was a very different idea of what a monument is. It was below ground, the color was black, it listed all the names chronologically. So people thought a monument looked a different way -- above ground, the Washington Monument sort of thing.

I tend to like to rethink whatever I do and maybe change your assumption of what something is. And that piece is indicative of what I tend to do. It works on a very quiet level of personal connection and intimacy. I don't yell out what something is. I'm asking you to participate.

In our last discussion, you revealed that the memorial you're working on in San Francisco on environmentalism will be your final memorial project. Why have you decided to set that kind of work aside?

The fifth and last of the memorial series will be, what if I could take the idea of a monument and make it flow like water, as information, wherever it wants to go? It's called "Missing," and it's going to exist in multiple forms -- a book, a Web site, an interactive video that'll launch at the California Academy of Sciences. I want to take over billboards, borrow billboards. But can I completely dematerialize the form of a monument?

It'll wake you up about an awareness about loss, but really it's a call to action. It'll show you what's being done throughout the world by a lot of conservation organizations. But then it'll tell you what you and I can do in our everyday life that could have a huge impact. I'm very interested, in anything I do, in getting you to change your assumption of what it is. And tweak it a little. I don't want to force you into it, but I'm maybe going to charm you and get you to look at something afresh or anew.