Omega Mart’s
Mega Art

Summer 2022
Creative Producing Producing, Physical Installation, Storytelling

Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart

Just outside of Omega Mart, a messy, grimey, graffiti-infested alcove has emerged. While Omega Mart was sleeping, a group of artists assumed the roles of anti-Dramcorp insurrectionists and spent four nights terrorizing this nook with texture, slime, aging, graffiti and sculptural details, corrupting Omega Mart products and siphoning funds to fuel their revolution. This team of artists have created havoc for Omega Mart and their parent company Dramcorp.

Skills Used:

World-building/ character-building
Brainstorm facilitation
Art-making
Production, planning & scheduling
Project management
Budgeting
Vendor communication
Onsite oversight
Collaboration with a variety of disciplines
Visual Communication (Slide Decks, Diagrams, Charts, etc...)

The Meow Wolf credit page for the project can be found here.
Concept Deck can be found here.

Project Overview

As a new producer at Meow Wolf, I was tasked with refreshing a mundane alcove outside of Omega Mart in the Area 15 spine—the first notable expansion since Omega Mart opened back in 2021. The end product: The Mega Art Zone, a nook that feels “infiltrated” graffiti-riddled, and fringe culture-y. The Mega Art Zone adds a new layer to the existing Omega Mart narrative while showcasing the talents of more than 40 local Las Vegas artists. The finished installation features two functioning vending machines filled with mini art available for the public to purchase, so everyone can take home a little piece of local art.

The elements I helped produce include:

Two vending machines full of local-artist-made mini art and gift items available for purchase.
Money funnel sculptures atop vending machines, created by local artist Luis Varela-Rico.
A “broken” vending machine with a “propaganda” monitor mounted inside.
Participating artist Nicole Cochener and her Gallery To Go company collaborated on the mini art vending; curating and stocking the clever machines.
Graffiti “frosting” throughout, co-designed and painted by local artist Izaac Zevalking, Recycled Propaganda.
The graffiti includes an embedded call-out to the late Meow Wolf Co-founder Matt King whose birthday is, in fact, September 6th.

The Process
Realizing this project was a long, emotional journey of many learnings and relationship building. Beginning as Meow Wolf cofounder, Emily Montoya’s loose ambition, I assembled a team of Meow Wolf founders, artists, operations employees, and external partners to start to hone in on real intentions for this what was a boring space of just placeholder shopping carts. I facilitated open-ended ideations, proof of concept production and regular meetings to address the technical requirements and safety hazards. One of our main tools was my centralized punchlist that documented the critical path and ganted when these tasks needed to be completed in order to see this project through Though the ethos of the project was to simply have fun onsite and lean into Meow Wolf’s free form spontatneous art making approached, structure was needed. Thus, my install schedule was our guiding light.

The onsite install was absoulte chaos, but in a good way. Meow Wolf founders and artists, including myself traveled from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Las Vegas to work in collaboration with local artists. Once onsite, we threw down overnight and into the early morning hours over four consecutive nights while AREA15. It was a blast. We truly transformed a non descript nook into a vibrant space full of visual stimulation and showcases dozens of local artists.

Some videos of me onsite: