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AREA15 named Best Immersive Art Experience
Best Immersive Art Experience (2021)
Enjoying art these days doesn’t always mean gazing at paintings on a wall. These 10 interactive art spaces offer multi-sensory experiences meant to immerse you within the art itself.
The top 10 winners in the category Best Immersive Art Experience are as follows:
- City Museum - St. Louis
- Factory Obscura - Oklahoma City
- ARTECHOUSE - Washington, DC
- Otherworld - Columbus, Ohio
- House of Eternal Return - Santa Fe, New Mexico
- WNDR Museum - Chicago
- Prismajic - Denver
- Seismique - Houston
- Wonderspaces Arizona - Scottsdale, Arizona
- AREA15 - Las Vegas
No. 10:
Housed in the 600,000-square-foot former warehouse of the International Shoe Company, the St. Louis City Museum has a bit of everything — the world's largest jungle gym, a 10-story spiral slide and a rooftop garden with stellar views of the city. Some 20 artists created the large-scale features of this interactive museum well before the term ‘immersive art’ became a thing.
Photo courtesy of Factory Obscura
No. 9:
This art collective in Oklahoma City crafts immersive experiences made to “awaken wonder, build community and make the world better.” The 6,000-square-foot space houses rotating installations. Mix-Tape, the current experience, took nearly a year to design and install by a team of some 30 artists.
No. 8:
Washington's ARTECHOUSE isn't your typical art gallery. Instead, it's an immersive, interactive space designed for showcasing experimental, large-scale installations by the world's most cutting edge artists. The company also operates spaces in New York City and Miami Beach.
No. 7:
Otherworld, an immersive art experience in Columbus, occupies a 32,000-square-foot space with 47 rooms of interactive art, secret passageways and mixed reality playgrounds. More than 40 artists contributed to the project, with backgrounds in everything from creative writing to digital fabrication.
No. 6:
Meow Wolf’s first project, the House of Eternal Return, features 70 rooms of interactive art, tied together by the mystery of the Selig family who disappeared from their Victorian manor. Choose your own path through the space, where walking, crawling and climbing are acceptable.
Photo courtesy of New Pixel Films
No. 5:
The WNDR Museum hosts immersive art and technology installations from artists, studios and collectives from around the region and the globe. The museum seeks to inspire “joy, curiosity and creativity” and recently reopened with a fully touchless experience.
No. 4:
Jen Mosquera and Eric Jaenike, the artistic duo behind Prismajic, bring immersive, interactive experiences to Denver that combine visual art and digital technology. The current installation, Shiki Dreams, takes visitors on a spiritual journey through a virtual reality forest.
No. 3:
Visitors to Seismique in Houston can explore more than 40,000 square feet of immersive art — the collaborative work of more than 30 artists. The west side “museum” has some 40 rooms, including a rain room and an all-ages jungle gym, meant to be explored in an open-form way.
Photo courtesy of Charles Darr, Plume by Ian Brill
No. 2:
This year-round art show highlights immersive artwork from around the globe. At any given time, visitors can explore more than a dozen installations that explore color, light, sound and abstract narratives. You can also find Wonderspaces in Austin, Philadelphia and San Diego.
No. 1:
AREA15 calls itself an “immersive playground,” featuring art installations, an interactive distillery, flight simulator, immersive sound and light spaces, axe throwing, arcade games and AR experiences. A highlight of the space is the new installation from Meow Wolf known as Omega Mart.
A panel of experts partnered with 10Best editors to pick the initial nominees, and the top 10 winners were determined by popular vote.
Congratulations to all these winning art spaces!
About 10Best Readers' Choice Awards
Nominees are submitted by a panel of experts. 10Best editors narrow the field to select the final set of nominees for the Readers’ Choice Awards. Readers can vote once per category, per day. For any questions or comments, please read the FAQ or email USA TODAY 10Best.
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10Best Local Experts provide users with original, unbiased, and experiential travel content of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world. No business pays to be listed. Our Local Experts are well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields - and their cities - but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about, with constantly updated content.
Helen Homan Wu
Helen Homan Wu
Helen Homan Wu is a Travel Curator and Founder of Curagenda, a luxury travel agency offering insider experiences for culture and art lovers around the world. Helen is also a member of Virtuoso and specializes in curated trips to Japan.
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USA TODAY 10Best provides users with original, unbiased and experiential travel coverage of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world.
10Best Editors
USA TODAY 10Best provides users with original, unbiased and experiential travel coverage of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world.
