Event Highlight - SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light

This episode is a sponsored event highlight for SOLSTICE, a reflective light and sound experience happening at Mount Auburn Cemetery this December. I sit down for a conversation with Matthew Stephens, the President and CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Sam Okerstrom-Lang, the co-founder of Masary Studios and the Creative Director of SOLSTICE.

Give a listen to hear about how the non‑denominational winter tradition came to be, what to expect as a visitor, how they craft the mood and tone for a reflective experience, some of their favorite stories of past solstices, and more.

SOLSTICE runs from December 5th - December 21st
Find more information and tickets at mountauburnsolstice.org

Photo by Aram Boghosian

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guests Introduced
• 0:56 What Solstice Is And Why It Matters
• 2:29 Non‑Denominational Reflection Versus Holiday Noise
• 4:12 Walking The Experience From Gate To Chapel
• 5:46 New Artworks: Hazel Dell And Arbor Poetics
• 7:12 Candlelighting And Bigelow Chapel Projections
• 8:41 Crafting Calm In A Crowd
• 10:14 Landscape As Co‑Creator
• 11:04 Tradition, Covid Pivot, And Growth
• 13:19 How The Collaboration Began
• 15:07 Moments That Stay: Proposals And Hawks
• 16:47 Who It’s For And How People Engage
• 19:07 Mount Auburn’s Broader Mission
• 21:02 Favorite Parts And Hopes For More Light
• 22:54 Dates, Tickets, And Practical Details
• 25:40 Host Wrap And Ways To Follow

Transcript

Matt: 0:07

Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is a special sponsored event highlight episode. And the event that I'm highlighting is Solstice, which is over at the Mount Auburn Cemetery this December. And to get to know more about the event, sat down with a couple people, Matthew Stephens from the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Samo, the creative director of Solstice. I'll let them introduce themselves and we'll get right into the conversation.

Matthew: 0:38

Great. Matthew Stephens, president and CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Samo: 0:43

My name is Samo, Sam Okerstrom-Lang. I'm the co-founder of Masary Studios and the creative director of Solstice.

Matt: 0:51

Great. We'll get into Solstice a lot here. So briefly, what is Solstice?

Matthew: 0:56

Solstice is a light and sound installation at Mount Auburn Cemetery during a few weeks in December that is really intended to provide a moment of reflection and inspiration for our communities. It at its core is an indoor-outdoor experience where we activate some of our chapels and then the landscape through a self-guided route that takes you deep into the landscape, with hopes, you start to see the landscape or Mount Auburn Cemetery in a new and figurative light. So there are specific installation, light and sound installations throughout the landscape, and then those are all connected through this path that is also illuminated that highlights both trees and monuments along the way.

Matt: 1:44

Yeah. And do you have anything to add on to that brief explanation?

Samo: 1:48

Yeah, I'd say to be additive, you know, it's a solstice, winter solstice tradition that we've established at Mount Auburn that is a gathering and is a kind of participatory, self-guided experience that is kind of guided by these artworks, guided by the landscape, the monuments. And at the center of it is a candlelighting service, which is kind of lighting your own new light in the darkest time of the year. And all of this kind of comes together to create this event. And it's really what one brings personally with them that makes the meaning of their participation and experience unique to them in the moment.

Matt: 2:28

Yeah. And it is good that you guys point out like the self-guided thing. You can come in and you can experience it however you want.

Matthew: 2:34

Well I think some people really it does depend what your, like the solstice has always been for the, you know, hundreds, thousands of years. Like well what did the last year bring? Like, was there more darkness? Was there more light? Will the next year bring more darkness or more light? And so depending on what happened in your life really makes it a very personalized experience. You know, I think some people reflect on, as an active cemetery, people reflect on losing loved ones or friends. Some people reflect on finding love. Some people reflect on the world at large and however they see it. And that is the very special part of solstice, is that everyone comes in from their different journey. It sort of creates this shared communal experience. And then whatever people get out of it is what they reflect and see in themselves.

Samo: 3:28

I think it's really special in the sense, too, of like, you know, the winter solstice is December 21st. This is a multi-week nightly event leading up to then. And we're constantly surrounded by other holiday invitations that are a bit more commercialized and have some direct or indirect religious connotations. And this is a intentionally non-denominational and is a place where you can feel like you're you are invited to really reflect away from that noise in a place where you can feel in a really safe place that Mount Auburn holds, you know, throughout the year, but especially at this time of the year. And it is a really honest and genuine offering for the public to be able to do that.

Matthew: 4:10

And it is nighttime in a public landscape. It is not a light show. It really is more than a light show because we're intending to curate an experience for someone to find something about themselves or the community that they didn't know before they showed up.

Matt: 4:28

Yeah. So maybe walk us through like someone walks in through the front gate, walk us through how a couple different people could experience this event. What are they gonna see when they first come in? Take us through that.

Samo: 4:40

Yeah, sure. Well, one of the first things you'll see is Bigelow Chapel illuminated on the hill, cresting over one of the rolling hills of Mount Auburn, and it stands there as this like just beautiful architectural statement and is ultimately the home for the candlelighting service and a few of the artworks. But in addition to that, there's compositions of these beautiful trees that are uplit, the soft noise of people bustling and welcoming in. And also nearby, where we're having this podcast, is Story Chapel. Masary calls it the home of the event, where it's a place where you can go indoors. There will be a theater showing different community leaders reflecting on their own solstice practice in the moment. And really kind of this entry area is where you can get yourself sorted, meet up with your family or friends, go to hospitality, get a hot drink before really kind of like leading up the hill into the kind of deeper Mount Auburn landscape where you'll begin to experience the various artworks for the event.

Matt: 5:39

Yeah. And do you want to explain any of those artworks or are you leaving it as a surprise?

Samo: 5:43

I'm happy to talk about them actually. Every year we try to sustain kind of the energy, concept, and aesthetic of the work while also evolving it. And this year in Hazel Dell, we have a new projection light and sound artwork that is sculptural and very meditative and inspired by the life and death cycle of a star. And this piece is really intended to invite patience, to invite meditation, to invite reflection, as you can sit there with the artwork itself and also wander around this beautiful dell, Hazel Dell, inside of Mount Auburn. And I invite folks to kind of come back to that on their exit too. And a brand new piece that's debuting is called Arbor Poetics. That's taking place on Beech Ave, which is another beautiful vista in the arboretum and cemetery. And it's really a poetic sound and light composition score that is scored to these trees that have been here for hundreds of years. And really, like what is the language, the energy that these have carried for so long, and really creating this kind of natural composition that spans over 300 feet across this, with beams of light crossing one another and playing with the silhouettes of these kind of hero trees, these beautiful forms of nature that are inspiring the sound and the composition. And the more iconic piece that's returning again is this chapel, this Bigelow Chapel. Inside is the candlelighting service, which is very quiet, meditative, with string musicians that are playing, that have played at the Mount Auburn solstice tradition even before the collaboration with Masary. They've been playing here for over 10 years. Rob, Beth, and Eve. But on the facade of that building are two new artworks as well, two projection and sound artworks that are poetic gestures to the moment in time. One is really focused on nature called duality, inspired by light and darkness, and specifically the ginkgo tree. And then the other is inspired by kind of this rhythm of light that is so legible, I think, during the winter solstice because our days are so short. We can see our axes in the kind of solar system. But then metaphorically too. These feelings of light and darkness is the winter solstice is the darkest moment, suggesting that we are inviting more light day by day into our lives after that moment.

Matthew: 8:09

Each year, you know, it seems like Masary keeps outdoing themselves. We sort of joking but not joking with uh Samo like, all right, well, this is a pretty high bar you set for yourself this year for next year. And each year they seem to keep helping to reimagine while preserving that core intent, that core experience. And you know, we're very humbled to have such thoughtful partners who really are proud to interpret this landscape and stories of this very special space.

Matt: 8:41

And how do you how do you craft like because what I noticed which was interesting when I was there last year was how you're around so many people, but it's this calm peacefulness, which is very unique to be in a crowd of people and feel calm and peacefulness, not high energy, you know. So how do you craft these large-scale works that also create that environment?

Samo: 9:03

Yeah, I'm really glad you felt that. That's certainly like a goal of ours to be able to present the work and the overall experience in that way. But I think it it is kind of really being careful with our creative decision making in the tones, the colors, the rate in which these various expressions are made. And it's our fifth year now, living with the cemetery, with the partners, and understanding this place from a poetic sense, from a value sense, from the people that work here, and just trying to always inject poetry into the work. Have something that is kind of speaking to the season, speaking to like the feelings that we're trying to invite. And yeah, I think being gentle is maybe a word too, where like we're not trying to rile people up. We are trying to offer a place to, I don't know, soothe them into a place of meditation or introspection. And that kind of patience with work and tone of work is particular in the various artworks that we've made.

Matthew: 10:03

It's interesting. I would have answered the question differently. I don't I don't disagree with anything Samo just referenced, but I think part of it is how sorry intertwines with the landscape here. That the landscape inherently has the ability to calm, soothe, provide comfort, provide reflection, inspiration to people who come. And the artistic installations are feathered on top of that. You know, the core experience is the landscape. But I think Masary really finds a way where each individual piece isn't just about the art. It really is about the art being here in Mount Auburn that makes it distinct. Like it might not work anywhere else. And especially like the Bigelow Chapel installation is the perfect example where you actually couldn't do that anywhere else because nowhere else has a gothic chapel that's a century and a half old, right?

Matt: 11:03

Yeah. And I think it's also important that it doesn't feel creepy or Halloween-y like having these lights out at night. You know, some people might hear light show at a cemetery and think that feel, but it is interesting how you're still able to not go that way at all. It feels peaceful and artistic rather than not that way.

Matthew: 11:22

And that's the beauty of this space. You know, like how did that happen? The founders chose really careful original parcel of land that has incredible character and vividness that lends itself to creating these one-of-a-kind journeys for people when they come to visit, whether it's for solstice or the other 364 days a year.

Matt: 11:41

Yeah. Now, do you want to talk a little bit about how this came about? So you've been having solstice at the cemetery for years, but in a different way. You want to talk a little bit about that history and then how this more added-on bit to it came about?

Matthew: 11:55

Yeah, for quite a few years, you know, a few decades, we celebrated solstice because it does mark this careful moment in the year where people just reflect. And as the days grow darker longer, it forces people, you know, generally in New England to sort of slow down and think about what has come and what's ahead. And I think we all get to that place by like February, like, okay, we're done with the dark, you know, we're done with the darkness. Bring on the spring blooms. But you know, we've always celebrated the solstice for many years with a candlelighting events, which is really at its essence, the core of the experience for solstice. So we did that for many years, where people would come and celebrate the solstice. And then when COVID happened, that you know complicated the candlelighting ceremony along with the rest of the world, but allowed an opportunity to sort of create a new spin. And so, you know, the year or two where COVID was happening, the candlelighting ceremony really evolved. And then once COVID was, I don't know, sort of if it's over, even if it's over today, but once it's sort of over that we really started to think about it very differently as a opportunity to engage our communities in a much broader way than before. And so each year the scale of how Solstice has grown, because you know, we had never done anything like this before, and there is no cemetery in like North America that has tried anything on this scale ever. And so, you know, over the years it's scaled from I think second or third year was around 8,000 people this year. Hopefully it'll be over 20,000 people from the community that are really welcomed into this special space to experience solstice. And so it it had its sort of humble beginnings, COVID happened, and then we have continued to sort of evolve and grow it from there.

Matt: 13:51

Yeah. And how did you reach out to Samo and his team? How did that relationship come out?

Matthew:13:55

That was before my time, I think Samo.

Samo: 13:58

Yeah, we had been exploring, you know, Mount Auburn Cemetery has a great artists in residency program. They present other artworks throughout the year, and there had been an opportunity we were proposing towards, which didn't come to fruition, but it was also an opportunity to start some relationship building with folks here. And it was our friend Bree Harvey, who works at Mount Auburn, that really kind of opened the invitation in 2020 to invite us to reimagine their tradition. That was really interesting because it was how can we take this metaphor of light and kind of expand it to a broader place in the landscape? But it was also 2020, so it was a hybrid broadcast event where people could tune in from home. But we still had the live musicians that were inside Bigelow Chapel. We had speakers speaking about the moment. And it was the first time we did large projections onto the facade of the chapel too. And it was this really special offering because Mount Auburn said, although we can't host this in person, we still need to make an offering of light to the public, this gesture of time where a lot of people were counting on every year. It was from that moment where so many people chimed in from remote. Matthew came to the cemetery and we started to explore how we can do this in person because it was so successful. And as kismet and the kind of, I think, our art making practice with light, with their tradition and metaphor and need to host something so special in this darkest time. And it really like bloomed from there, both in kind of like practicality and art direction, all while retaining this original essence of what they'd been hosting for over 20 years.

Matthew: 15:38

So the original was Masary reached out to Mount Auburn, I guess, said like, hey, you're doing it.

Samo: 15:43

Original, original, yeah, we knocked on the front door.

Matthew: 15:46

Sort of like, hey, we understand you support artists in different ways. Maybe there's something that could happen. I think, you know, in a very serendipic way, Massari arrived at the right time in the organization's history where we saw them as a valuable partner to help move the mission of what we do forward.

Matt: 16:05

Right. Having this general openness to artistic collaboration was an interesting thing to have around.

Matthew: 16:11

Yeah. And also just part of the history of Mount Auburn. I mean, whether it's light art or landscape architecture or the artistry and monuments carving. For 190 plus years now, there's so many artists that have had their fingerprints added to this special landscape. And that was always the founder's vision that there would be this sort of tapestry or quilt of a multidisciplinary team of artists who help design what you see today. And it's like hundreds or thousands of people at this point. And even some of our staff today, right, who are, you know, decide, well, that's where that tree goes, or this is where these perennials go, or obviously, you know, in the very real, like this is what this monument is going to be or not. It really does show up in a lot of different ways.

Matt: 16:56

Yeah. And do you have any favorite stories or moments from previous instances of this event that really stick out for you guys?

Samo: 17:04

Oh my gosh, so many. I would share first, last year, we had actually somebody who had their marriage proposal happen at Solstice, which was really special. I was not expecting that to happen. And it was by a piece Eclipse on Beech Ave. As an artist, you know, if somebody is deciding to mark that moment in their life with this experience, this artwork, it's so rewarding to know that your work is meaningful. I think like at the end of the day, that's why we make work is for meaning, for inspiration, to give somebody something to make them feel something. And somebody who's like, oh, I'm going to propose to my partner. Wow. It was really beautiful.

Matt: 17:42

That one looked like a giant ring. So I can see I can see it.

Samo: 17:46

Totally, totally. But I mean, there's so many moments. I think in 2022, there's a kind of a famous hawk that lives here. And I remember like installing on our first day. It's a lot of work to get, you know, all the people and equipment in here temporarily. And this hawk was just perched on a branch for like three hours watching us. 

Matthew: 18:05

Keeping an eye on you guys. 

Samo: 18:06

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's like kind of like the whoa of a marriage proposal to like the little moments, too, of working here in the landscape. It's so special to work here and to like just, you know, have a hawk hang out with you for a moment. We see coyotes all the time. Like the wildlife here is totally curious about what we're doing. Those are always fun moments to share and laugh about and point out as a team.

Matthew: 18:28

It would be impossible to come here for the solstice experience and not observe someone being meaningfully inspired. You know, whether it's like a toddler walking around with their parents or like that very special moment where your candle is lit inside Bigelow Chapel. It's not that uncommon for people to like break down in tears because that is a true moment from darkness to light. And especially if you've lost someone over the last year, I think that is really a profound like I really am in this moment in a non-digital way, you know, feeling grief or sorrow or love.

Matt: 19:10

As we get towards the end here, who is this event for? Who are you hoping to come out to this?

Matthew: 19:15

I think we're hoping for a local community to come out who have who are looking for that moment of reflection. You know, Solstice isn't curated for one specific age. I mean, we see young children or young families come and inevitably each of the different artworks inspires people in different ways. You know, so we have children who will like stare up at Bigelow Chapel for like hours and need to be peeled away. Or we have every year there's always a couple of people who seem like they live at Solstice. They come for a few hours, like multiple nights, because they want to experience it over and over again, or want to experience with different parts of the community. But it's really designed for our local community. That being said, I think we do end up with people from like North Carolina and Texas and the Midwest purchasing tickets to come out. And it is on select nights in December, all nights listed on the website. There is some modest food and beverage offerings and a small retail components that are all intended to enhance the experience for people. Yeah.

Samo: 20:23

Yeah, I think like what I mentioned earlier, so it is completely meant for the local community. And people that are looking for something that, you know, isn't attuned or connected to kind of the trope traditions of the holiday season and are looking for something that's like authentic and genuine to feel, to reflect, to find solace, whether that's through joy or whether that's through grief. And yeah, we get kids, kids will like be mesmerized with just a single light. Like, whoa, colored light at night. Like that's a great moment to witness too. And then, you know, like all kinds of folks and elders that have never seen this kind of work too. And also like what Matthew's talking about, people do come back that season. But I think we're also trying to continue and grow this into a community tradition. We want people to come back year after year with their friends, with their family, as like a moment to connect with themselves, the people around them, but to treat this as like, I am solsticing. If they didn't have a winter solstice practice, this can be a part of it if they'd like to.

Matthew: 21:27

Yeah. And you know, perhaps even some of the people who come have just a curiosity around what Mount Auburn Cemetery is. Like Mount Auburn Cemetery, we are a cemetery. We do bury human remains in the ground as part of our ongoing business, but we're more than just a cemetery. And I think Solstice has been an incredible gateway into the organization so that if you come for Solstice, you get a sense. You know, it for someone who's never been to Mount Auburn, inevitably within the first five minutes, they say, This is not what I thought it was going to look like. Because people have this image of cemeteries with stark rows of monuments lined up in sort of straight lines, or like a Hollywood cemetery where there's tumbleweeds sort of floating through the background and Mount Auburn looks like neither of those things. And yeah, that's all part of the founder's vision of really wanting to create this space for the living and for the dead that is inspired by nature and art. And so for the community who feels like they could use a little dose of nature or art or a moment of reflection, Solstice is for them.

Matt: 22:28

Gotcha. Well, any other last thoughts that we didn't hit on something before, give them the details about where to find out information.

Matthew: 22:35

Uh Samo, what's your favorite part of Solstice other than when it's done and you can go back to sleeping normal hours?

Samo: 22:42

I love being a stranger at Solstice. Like we work, you know, we start this work in February of each year. It's a long time of like careful development, of management, the art making. And I'm here almost every night. And I like just kind of pretending like I don't know what's going on and listening in on people or seeing people's expressions. Like it's really rewarding as an artist to see people cry, to see people laugh, to see people smile. And it's that with the artwork, but also, like I said, like just a moment of gathering too. Like we have created something together that's really special. And it's really rewarding just to notice that.

Matt: 23:18

Yeah.

Matthew: 23:19

He's incognito. That's right. Yeah. When you come, you might be standing next to Samo. He's gonna be watching what you're taking pictures of and what yeah. 

Samo: 23:27

I'll ask, what is this?

Matthew: 23:30

I think my favorite part is just I feel very lucky to hear this collection of what inspires people, you know, because I'll hear before, during, or after, this is what I liked last year, this is what I like this year, you know, and you hear really the full gamut of people who are reflecting on grief or reflecting on love, or reflecting on like thinking that tomorrow there'll be a little bit more light than there was today. And I think specifically in this moment, that hope of tomorrow there'll be a little bit more light than there is today is really resonant and certainly something that Mount Auburn is fully committed to delivering to the community indefinitely into the future.

Matt: 24:13

Great. Well, if people are now interested in checking this out, what's all the details of where they can find this and how they should go about coming to it?

Matthew: 24:22

Mount Auburn Cemetery, Winter Solstice, there's a website up and running that has FAQs on how the experience works, how parking works, how to get tickets. Tickets are selling relatively fast. Peak times are nearly sold out as of this mid-ish point of November. And you know, each year we do expect to be sold out. So we're really encouraging people to get their tickets early or become Mount Auburn members where they'll get discount on tickets. And then certainly if they miss tickets this year, we'll be in the first, can get tickets early access compared to the general public.

Samo: 24:59

The event website is Mount Auburn Solstice.org, where you can find all the information Matthew talked about. You can search Mount Auburn Cemetery and Masary Studios on Instagram, of course, and we're kind of teasing out a few things leading up to the event. And opening night is December 5th through December 21st. And typically first entry is about 5, 530, depending on the weekday or weekend. That can go up until nine o'clock. So there's a lot of flexibility for folks to join us.

Matt: 25:26

Nice. And I'll of course put all that in the show notes for people to click through. So yeah, well, great. Thank you for taking the time to share about this experience coming up and I hope people check it out.

Matthew: 25:36

Thank you.

Samo: 25:37

Thank you for having us, Matt.

Matt: 25:38

So that's it for the conversation with Matthew and Samo. You can find more information on Solstice at MountAuburnSolstice.org. As of the day of that I'm releasing this, there are still tickets available, so you can go find them. I'll also put a link in the show note there if you just want to click through. And there you can also see some videos of what this actually looks like too. If you'd like to hear more episodes of the podcast, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com, find all the episodes there, events coming up, sign up for my weekly newsletter, to keep up to date on everything. So that's it. Until next time, take care.