Deb Todd Wheeler
What if a walk through the woods could hold your grief and hand it back as something living? We sit down with artist Deb Todd Wheeler to explore Radio Silence, a geolocated audio walk at Brookline’s Lost Pond that folds field recordings, original songs, and quiet conversation into a moving ritual of remembrance.
Born from the loss of her son, Lucas, the project turns a funeral’s flood of flowers into a woodland shrine and invites listeners to step into soundscapes where memory, nature, and time intertwine. Deb shares how the path unfolds: music starting as your feet cross a threshold, birdsong threaded into rhythm, and pauses that turn the forest into a sanctuary. At the heart is the clearing—once razed, now regrown—where saplings rise as tall as the years since Lucas’ passing, a living metaphor for restoration and legacy. We talk about community mythmaking around the shrine, the pandemic’s surge of outdoor mourning, and the challenge of honoring private grief while creating public art that feels safe, intimate, and true.
Our conversation widens to No Sleeping, Deb’s performance series inside historic bedrooms that examines preservation, light, and the caretaking tools that keep memory dust-free. We dig into her All Play gatherings, a participatory music practice where everyone performs and the audience’s role is to hold space, not judge—turning spectators into collaborators and fear into fuel. If you’re curious about grief rituals, site-specific audio, ecological storytelling, or how to design experiences that measure impact in hearts, not numbers, this is a generous, grounded listen. Subscribe for more conversations on art as legacy, share this episode with someone who needs a gentle container for remembrance, and leave us a review to help others find the show.
Image Details:
1. photo by Elijah Mickelson
2. description: front and back cover of the Book of Walks
photo by Kelly Davidson, book design John Kramer
3. description: Lucas’ Shrine in the woods near Lost Pond
photo by Deb Todd Wheeler
4. photo credit Aram Bogosian for Masary Studios Solstice
5. photo credit: Sue Murad at Gropius House
6. description: NO SLEEPING is an interactive, multi-media performance that takes place in historic house museums at night. NO SLEEPING evolved from the search for cultural kinship in the act of preservation, between historic homes that are open to the public and Deb Todd Wheeler’s relationship to the private, non-historic site of her son’s bedroom, which she has maintained since his unexpected death. Co-created with artist Sue Murad, and developed while artists-in-residence at the Shaker Meetinghouse in Harvard, MA.
photo credit: Sue Murad
7. photo credit: Deb Todd Wheeler
