Photos courtesy of Milton Keynes City Council and Chris Henley
Inside the Circle of the Sun
22/06/25
Milton Keynes
Commissioned by Milton Keynes City Council for Midsummer Festival 2025
Photos courtesy of Milton Keynes City Council and Chris Henley
Film by: Roxy Asare
Inside the Circle of the Sun is an interactive installation by Lesley Asare and Katie Fields.
This collaborative work, commissioned by Milton Keynes City Council for Midsummer Festival 2025, is inspired by ancestral clay practices, summer solstice rituals, and solar cosmologies from West Africa, the Mediterranean, and Northern Europe.
At its centre is a circular surface holding sculptural gnomons that track the sun’s movement through shadow and light. Surrounding vessels warm under the sun’s gaze, gathering heat and energy throughout the day.
Interwoven with these solar instruments are ceramic sound vessels, including an Udu drum, vasijas silbadoras (Peruvian Whistling Vessels), and ocarinas, crafted in honour of ancestral traditions that understand clay, breath, water, and sound as pathways to spirit and healing.
Visitors are invited to take small offerings from a ring encircling the work—tokens of solstice energy to carry into the darker half of the year. Scattered cairns across the site hold further invitations to reflect, remember, and return.
At twilight, the artists closed the day with a ritual of sound, water, and movement.
Grogged Pink, Hand built Ceramic Vessels including an Udu Drum, Vasija Silbadoras (Peruvian Whistling Vessels), Ocarinas and Water Pots.
Listen to the Myth of Solkara
This Prologue was written and narrated by artist Lesley Asare and emerged through an alchemical collaboration with artist Katie Ellen Fields.
Together, we listened.
We listened to the vessels, to the land, to our hearts and to the quiet fire that burns within us.
We listened to the texture of the clay within our hands, to the wind upon our skin and to the turning sun.
What follows is the world that spoke back.
The Ritual of Solkara
Midsummer Festival 2025
Milton Keynes
Photos courtesy of Milton Keynes City Council and Chris Henley
Film by: Roxy Asare
The Ritual of Solkara is a quiet, sacred ceremony honouring the sun, breath, and ancestral memory. Held in a circle of clay vessels and sun-marked objects, two figures—the Voice-Bearer and the Keeper of Stillness—move through a series of gestures with sound, water, and light.
The ritual invites the sun to leave its mark through cyanotype prints, sacred vessels, and shared silence. At dusk, small flames are lit and gently blown out, closing the ritual with breath and reverence.
It is a ritual of presence and connection—rooted in the earth, guided by the sun, and carried by the body.
