Salt Lake City Arts Council has spent the past year and a half working with local and national artists, businesses and conservationists to address the environmental crisis on Utah’s doorstep—the disappearing Great Salt Lake. A Bloomberg-funded public art challenge, Wake the Great Salt Lake comprised 12 temporary art installations to inspire purpose-driven change. As the art challenge comes to a close, one final installation aims to capture the attention of the global community.
Olafur Eliasson is an Icelandic-Danish artist renowned for his large-scale installations that incorporate elemental themes and sensory cues to challenge the way we perceive our environments. Featured in major museums across the globe, Eliasson’s previous works include The Weather Project, a giant indoor sun glowing inside Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London, and The New York City Waterfalls, four manmade cascades placed along Manhattan and Brooklyn’s shorelines. This spring, Utah audiences will get to experience Eliasson’s latest work, A Symphony of Disappearing Sounds, at Memory Grove Park.
The Studio Olafur Eliasson team has collaborated with field recording consultants, music producers and event production companies to fabricate an immersive sound and light installation in the heart of Salt Lake City. Activated in the evening, a giant spherical projection screen will display visuals, while wildlife sounds, ambient noise and music play through the park. “The presentation will be different from night to night,” says WGSL Project Lead Andrew Shaw. “Some nights you’ll hear the full composition, others you will hear a more shifting soundscape.” The evolving piece encourages repeat encounters from visitors, who can view the giant sphere from multiple vantage points, like the Capitol and City Creek.
Visualizations to be included in the display. Courtesy Wake the Great Salt Lake.
The first-of-its-kind piece by an internationally acclaimed artist is sure to draw eyes from across the globe, and the SLCAC hopes to provide a sense of awe and hope to locals during an environmental tipping point. “By experiencing public art together, we as a community share a moving experience, connecting us not only to the Great Salt Lake but to each other,” says Felicia Baca, Executive Director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council. Visit Memory Grove Park on March 29 for the opening night ceremony. The installation will be active until April 4, 2026.
Listening to Great Salt Lake
The installation features recent recordings captured around the Great Salt Lake, as well as archived recordings from the Western Soundscape Archive—an audio catalogue founded in 2007 that includes 570 Western bird species calls, all of the region’s vocalizing frogs, toads, reptiles and over 100 mammal sounds. Ambient recordings will also be present, including sounds beneath the water’s surface captured through a hydrophone.
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