Summer Solstice Sunrise: Alexandria’s Waterfront Art Installation Was Built for This Exact Moment
For just a few fleeting minutes at dawn, the rising sun will shine perfectly through the artwork’s towering words—just as artist Alicia Eggert intended.
ALEXANDRIA, VA – If you’ve been curious about Alexandria’s newest waterfront art installation but haven’t made it down to see it yet, tomorrow morning offers a rare opportunity to experience the artwork exactly as it was designed to be seen.
Just before sunrise on the Summer Solstice, residents will gather at Waterfront Park to witness a celestial alignment built into the monumental public artwork Now or Never. For a few brief moments around 5:43 a.m. Saturday, June 21, the rising sun will shine directly through the narrow opening between the giant words NOW and NEVER—precisely as artist Alicia Eggert envisioned when she created the temporary installation.
This isn’t a happy accident.
Tomorrow morning is the reason the artwork was built.
The towering installation was deliberately rotated 22 degrees north of true east so that on the Summer Solstice—the longest day of the year—the sun rises directly through the center of the work. The City of Alexandria is inviting residents to join the artist at Waterfront Park beginning at 5:30 a.m. to witness the event.
Part of Alexandria’s annual Site See: New Views in Old Town public art program, Now or Never is the eighth temporary installation commissioned through the City of Alexandria’s Public Art Program. The series brings residents and visitors to Waterfront Park to engage with contemporary art in one of the city’s most historic settings.
Most public art asks us to stop and look. This installation has been asking us to wait. And tomorrow morning, after months of anticipation, it reaches its crescendo. The artwork consists of two monumental billboard-like sculptures facing one another across a narrow passageway. One declares NOW. The other replies NEVER.
Eggert’s work often explores humanity’s relationship with time, language, and choice. By inviting visitors to physically move between the two structures, the artwork underscores the possibility of finding common ground—even in polarized circumstances.
The phrase “now or never” resonates on multiple levels. Collectively, it speaks to global challenges where hesitation can mean missed opportunities. Individually, it serves as a reminder that every moment presents a choice—a chance to shape one’s future and live deliberately from this moment forward.
The Summer Solstice alignment reinforces those themes while connecting human experience to the larger rhythms of the natural world.
Eggert has described time as central to her artistic practice.
“Although I consider myself a sculptor, my primary concern is with the fourth dimension, time, because time is synonymous with existence,” she has said.
She has also written that she uses familiar words as gateways into larger ideas. “I focus on the words and phrases we use in our everyday language—words like ‘now’ and ‘then’—as points of entry into more complex ideas.”
Tomorrow morning, those ideas will become something visitors can literally stand inside.
As the first light of day rises over the Potomac and pours through the space between NOW and NEVER, the installation feels less like a sculpture and more like a question.
What are you waiting for? The trip you’ve always wanted to take. The call you’ve been meaning to make. The adventure you’ve postponed. The dream you’ve put off until someday. The whole artwork seems to whisper: If not now, when?
Perhaps that’s why so many Alexandrians are willing to set an alarm for an hour usually reserved for fishermen and marathon runners.
Because this isn’t just a sunrise. It’s the moment the entire artwork has been waiting for. The installation wasn’t created for tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning is why it was created.
About the Artist
Alicia Eggert (b. 1981) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work gives material form to language and time through sculpture, light, installation, and public art. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, CAFA Art Museum in Beijing, the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, the Everson Museum of Art, and Telfair Museums.
Her work is held in collections including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis. Among numerous honors, Eggert has received a TED Fellowship, a Long Now Foundation Fellowship, the Hopper Prize, and the S&R Foundation Washington Award.
She is currently an Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of North Texas.
Now or Never will remain on display at Alexandria’s Waterfront Park through November 2026.
IF YOU GO
What: Summer Solstice Alignment of Now or Never
Where: Waterfront Park, 1 Prince Street, Alexandria
When: Saturday, June 21
Arrival Time: 5:30 a.m.
Sunrise Alignment: Approximately 5:43 a.m.
Cost: Free
Bring a camera—and perhaps a sweater. The alignment lasts only a few moments, but the experience may stay with you much longer.
