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Every year, for just a few minutes, one of Arlington’s most iconic works of public art comes to life exactly as its artist intended.

On Saturday, Aug. 1, at approximately 9:32 a.m., visitors will gather in Rosslyn to witness the annual shadow alignment at Nancy Holt’s Dark Star Park (1979–84). At that precise moment, the shadows cast by the sculpture’s spheres and poles align with permanent shadow forms embedded in the ground—a phenomenon Holt designed to commemorate the anniversary of Rosslyn’s founding.

The alignment lasts only a few moments, but it has become a beloved Arlington tradition, drawing residents, visitors, artists and architecture enthusiasts alike to experience the intersection of art, astronomy, and history. If the weather cooperates, the park transforms into a striking demonstration of how light, time and place can become part of a work of art.

Created between 1979 and 1984, Dark Star Park was Arlington’s first County-commissioned public artwork and remains one of the nation’s earliest examples of integrated public art—where sculpture, landscape architecture and the surrounding environment function as a single work. Rather than placing an object within a park, Holt made the entire park the artwork, incorporating spheres, pools, steel poles, tunnels, earthworks and carefully positioned plantings into an immersive landscape.

Nancy Holt (1938–2014) was a pioneering artist whose work spanned poetry, film, photography, land art and large-scale public sculpture. Throughout her career, she explored perception, time and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Dark Star Park remains her most significant urban installation and one of the few major works by the artist that can be experienced in an accessible city setting.

Whether you’ve attended for years or have never visited before, Dark Star Park Day offers a rare opportunity to experience a public artwork that changes with the movement of the sun—and reminds us that some of the most memorable moments in art happen not inside a museum, but out in the world around us.

Dark Star Park Day

When: Saturday, Aug. 1, beginning around 9 a.m.; shadow alignment at approximately 9:32 a.m.
Where: Dark Star Park, 1655 N. Fort Myer Drive, Rosslyn