The artist, architect, and environmentalist Maya Lin is set to release her inaugural generative art project. Titled Ghost Forest Seedlings, and produced by Pace Verso with Web3 art innovators E.A.T_WORKS, the work will be released on September 18 to align with Climate Week NYC.

Ghost Forest Seedlings builds on Lin’s 2021 Ghost Forest installation, which saw 50 Atlantic white cedar trees placed in Madison Square Park to highlight Earth's fragility amidst the climate crisis. The latest artworks, each priced at $1,000, depict a seed or group of seeds that grow into an intricate root pattern over a predetermined amount of time. Each of the 500 unique works from the project will include three components: a signed print of the final root system, a generative NFT that shows the seedling’s evolution in real-time, and a video timelapse tracing the seedling’s complete growth pattern.

“With Ghost Forest Seedlings, Lin explores the organic growth patterns of a living, subterranean network of tree roots,” producer Pace Verso said in a statement. “Her blockchain-backed, generative algorithm for the project generates NFTs featuring seedlings that grow into expansive root systems over time, as well as physical prints that show the root network in its final, fully evolved state. As such, Ghost Forest Seedlings reflects the artist’s deep sensitivity to the complexity, beauty, and fragility of the natural world and its interconnected systems.”

“The delicate tendrils of the roots in Ghost Forest Seedlings recall the snaking linear forms of her sculptures of waterways, which speak to Lin’s interest in mapping topographical landscapes while also serving as meditations on the ways that natural resources defy and transcend borders and other human constructs,” Verso added. “The conceptual underpinnings and formal qualities of Ghost Forest Seedlings also reflect Lin’s interest in depictions of organic — as opposed to fractal and geometric — patterns in computer-generated art, and the algorithm she has developed for this project will generate growth patterns as varied and intricate as those found in nature.”

Each physical artwork, measuring 23 inches by 23 inches, will be printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper by Brooklyn Editions. Select prints will be on display at Pace’s 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York from the launch on September 18 through September 22.

Other recent works by Lin to feature in our editorial include a new performing arts studio for Bard College and a sculptural installation for the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago. In 2022, Lin also unveiled her design for New York’s Museum of Chinese in America, which was the subject of a PBS special.