The Factory Obscura is a massive collaborative art project in Oklahoma City that has been redefining the art scene since its debut in 2017. The building installation, dubbed the “Mix-Tape”, spans 6,000 square feet and is an interactive exhibit where visitors are encouraged to explore and engage in a multi-sensory environment where each room is a portal to a different world and experience.

The exhibit is the product of 29 different artistic talents, all showcasing different skills such as muralists, painters, sculptors, textile artists, poets, and musicians. Everything in the installation is handmade and intricately detailed, taking years to finish. Co-founder Kelsey Karper wanted to create something that involved the work of different artists coming together in a collaborative process while also making sure to not spare any of their individual creative freedoms.

“Our highly collaborative process—from design to installation—is something that sets us apart, resulting in intricately detailed, handmade environments that are rich in meaning and emotion,” said Karper.

Although the exhibit is small, it’ll take more than a few hours to be able to uncover every secret within each room. The installation does not spare any amount of creativity or lack in detail.

Factory Obscura’s purpose is to support and uplift artists, foster their creativity, and breathe a fresh breath of air into the community, especially in a time where most industry bound artists are taken for granted. The founder’s goal is to build a new economic model that values and sustains art and artists while also creating a platform for more ambitious, large-scale projects.

“Our goals for the company include building a new economic engine that can evolve how art and artists are valued and sustained, providing a platform for artists to create on a larger scale than is possible on their own, and awakening wonder and joy in our community through meaningful art experiences,” said Karper.

Factory Obscura is part of a larger historical evolution of immersive and interactive art. The artist’s work takes inspiration from several significant movements in art history such as:

• Surrealism (1920s-1940s): Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte were definite inspirations for the exhibit. These artists created dreamlike, immersive spaces within their paintings that defied logic and nature, much like the Factory Obscura.
• Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting (1940s-1950s): Artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock were dedicated to engulfing their viewers in sensory experiences that evoked certain emotions.
• Happenings and Performance Art (1950s-1960s): Artists such as Allan Kaprow and Yoko Ono introduced interactive, live art, which required the audience to involve themselves with the pieces–the Factory’s central artistic purpose.
• Light and Space Movement (1960s-1970s): Artists like James Turrel and Yayoi Kusama, with their inventive uses of light and space, created large-scale, illusionary, perception-altering environments.
• Contemporary Immersive Art (2000s-Present): The exhibit is similar to different massive collective works such as Meow Wolf and teamLab, which also blended handmade tactile art with interactive factors and environments.

What distinguishes this installation is that while other exhibits rely a lot of their immersiveness on technology and light shows, 90% of Factory Obscura is comprised of handcrafted pieces of art.