On the darkest nights of the year, Mount Auburn Cemetery will be awash with light, sound, and art, as MASARY Studios presents its fourth annual “SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light” December program there.
“It’s a tradition of recognizing that moment of our shortest days through large, monumental media artworks specific to Mount Auburn,” said MASARY’s principal, Sam Okerstrom-Lang. “It’s a moment of gathering, of slowing down, of breathing more slowly.”
Okerstrom-Lang is a light, animation, and video artist. Ryan Edwards is a percussionist and composer. Together, they cofounded MASARY in 2015 to craft versatile, site-specific spectacles like “SOLSTICE.”
Where to find them: www.instagram.com/masary_studios
Ages: Edwards is 45; Okerstrom-Lang is 33.
Originally from: Edwards was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., Okerstrom-Lang in Great Barrington.
Live in: Quincy and Allston, respectively.
Making a living: What started as a group of freelancers meeting every Thursday to toss around ideas and business plans has blossomed into a full-time, eight-person collective.
Studio: A small office in MASARY’s Fort Point space at Midway Studios adjoins a large fabrication area with a table scattered with electronics. “We’re a day behind on a massive shipment of lights,” Edwards said. “We expected there’d be 1,300 LEDs all spread out and six people assembling them.”
How they started: Light-based public art presenter Illuminus invited Okerstrom-Lang and Edwards, along with percussionist and digital media artist Maria Finkelmeier, to collaborate at their 2015 festival. Their ‘Waking the Monster” project turned Fenway Park’s Green Monster into a giant percussion instrument.
That sparked an aha moment. “‘What if we could do this all the time?’,” said Edwards. “One thing led to another, and over what is now almost 10 years, those freelance gigs either got folded into the studio or we let them go.” Now MASARY works across North America.
What they make: In 2022, “Hybrid Agencies” at the Museum of Science explored the intersection of AI and dance. In 2023, “Recursion and Release,” at Providence’s Grace Episcopal Church, involved three environments, a vocal ensemble, video projection, and light design.
They couldn’t have created a nimble startup with this technology before they did, Edwards said, and the Boston area is fertile for collaboration. “Those things all combine to then take our curiosity and make it a job,” he said.
How they work: “Everybody in the room has the ability to have a conversation about the work, have input, and to reflect on it, to have these ideas that are really an enigma of the collective voice of our studio,” said Okerstrom-Lang.
That spirit extends to clients. “We give them the license and some of the container to be creative themselves. To join us,” Edwards said. “They’re hopefully turned on and electrified by that.”
Advice for artists: “You have to be honest with yourself,” Edwards said.
To Okerstrom-Lang, that means recognizing when you don’t feel your art light you up and when you do. “Get your hands dirty and don’t be afraid of feelings of incompatibility or failing,” he said. “Once you do feel it, grab onto it and continue to harness that, but don’t be too precious.”
SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light
Presented by MASARY Studios at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 560 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge 6:30-9 p.m. Dec. 7-21. Timed tickets $5-$35. www.mountauburnsolstice.org
Cate McQuaid can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @cate.mcquaid.