"Thirty Blocks" Art Installation

The story of a hidden clay installation called "Thirty Blocks" by visual artist Virginia Maksymowicz — a former UCSD graduate student from the class of 1977 — has survived for almost 40 years.

On May 10, 1970, a UCSD undergraduate, George Winne Jr., doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire in the middle of Revelle Plaza. Winne was the fourth incident of self-immolation that year in California higher education. A couple years after Winne's death, undergraduates in Michael Todd's Environmental Sculpture class established the George Winne Jr. Memorial Grove, in which Maksymowicz's "Thirty Blocks" is located (Polachek, 2013).

• 1976

• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Online exhibit

• Tell Us How UC It Project website

Polachek, Emily. (2013, May 28). History Set in "Thirty Blocks" of Clay. The UCSD Guardian, 46(57). Retrieved from https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb4267826j
Image: Szeto, Alwin (Photographer). (2013, May 28). History Set in "Thirty Blocks" of Clay. The UCSD Guardian, 46(57). Retrieved from https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb4267826j

• UCSD Guardian

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2023-07-11