Supporting the Causes That Shape Our Community: Wake the Great Salt Lake
At Cornerstone, we believe event production is more than logistics. It’s about creating moments that move people — experiences that last long after the equipment is packed away. Most of the time, that means producing world-class corporate events, brand activations, and large-scale productions for our clients. But some of our most meaningful work comes from projects tied to something larger than the event itself.
When Experience Becomes Awareness
There's something uniquely powerful about a live experience. A well-crafted installation or event does more than inform. It connects with you in a way that a billboard, a social post, or even a documentary simply can't. And when that experience is tied to an urgent cause, it has the ability to shift not just how people think, but what they do.
Time and again, research has shown that people don't just remember experiences — they act on them. That's what makes the live format such a meaningful vehicle for causes that need more than awareness.
Wake the Great Salt Lake
This spring, Cornerstone had the opportunity to help tell the story of the Great Salt Lake through a striking artwork experience.
The Great Salt Lake is one of Utah's most defining natural landmarks, and one of its most threatened. The lake reached its lowest recorded water level in 2022, the result of decades of water diversion for agriculture and development, compounded by the effects of climate change. As the lake shrinks, entire ecosystems hang in the balance. Roughly 10 to 12 million birds depend on it each year to rest, feed, and breed. Brine shrimp, a keystone species in the lake’s food chain, face growing instability. When one species disappears, others follow.
Wake the Great Salt Lake is a public art initiative dedicated to raising awareness of the lake’s crisis and inspiring action around its future. The capstone of the project was a stunning sound and light installation by internationally acclaimed Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, presented each evening at Memory Grove Park in Salt Lake City from March 26 through April 4, 2026.
The installation titled A symphony of disappearing sounds for the Great Salt Lake projected a colorful, evolving light display onto the surface of a large, elevated sphere, accompanied by a musical composition built from over 150 field recordings of the lake’s wildlife: birds, amphibians, insects, and more. Created in collaboration with UK-based music producer Koreless, the effect was an immersive and thought-provoking visual representing the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. It invited the community to listen to a world that is quietly disappearing.
Eliasson’s past installations have appeared at major museums and public spaces around the globe, using art to connect audiences to environmental realities they might otherwise overlook. This marks his first commissioned work in Utah and the Intermountain West.
Wake the Great Salt Lake is a winning project of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which has helped bring civic-minded public art to cities around the world. It was also supported by the Salt Lake City Arts Council and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office.
Keep the Conversation Going
Learn more about the Wake the Great Salt Lake initiative and how you can support the cause at wakegsl.org. And if you’re working on a project, whether it’s a major production or a cause close to your heart, we’d love to hear about it. Connect with the Cornerstone team here.
