The Real Unreal
You’ll know it by the giant rainbow exterior mural visible from planes landing at DFW. You’ll wonder if you’re really at a mall in Texas. You are, and you are not. You’re at The Real Unreal, where what is real is unreal, and what is unreal is more real than real. It starts with a house: a 1970s tract home belonging to a blended Black family where a mother and her son, Jared Fuqua, have moved in after falling on hard times. Diegetic story layers pervade every inch of the detailed home, leading you through portals that open up–in the fireplace, the fridge, the dryer–where you, like Jared, will vanish into the multiverse.
Seventy mind-bending rooms unfold from the artists’ hands. A wall of museum-quality slime. A refrigerator space capsule. A neon city that moonlights as a music venue. This place, created by 150 artists (including 40 local Texas collaborators from largely diverse and underrepresented backgrounds), brings experiential magic, art, and community to a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. You’ll find your way by not finding your way. This choose-your-own-adventure experience rewards seekers of depth and encourages personal agency, wander, and play.
The Challenge
To create the 29,000 square feet of The Real Unreal, the team engaged a sustainability mindset when retrofitting the husk of a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Community building was and remained paramount. We began listening sessions, town halls, and local outreach before ground was broken, and our community engagement is still well underway after last July’s opening. We opened a new “Mystery Center” within the space as an art studio and community center dedicated to our late co-founder Matt King, artist, wizard, and friend.
Art accessibility is a pillar to the B Corp behind The Real Unreal, so it just made sense to design the portals to be wheelchair accessible, create a narrative clue in ASL, and undergo rigorous training to become a certified Autism center. We also partnered with Aria to provide live visual descriptions for blind/low vision guests for free.
Project Vision
The tech designers worked to implement an innovative audio and lighting program using proprietary software created in-house to geodirect sound for precise positioning and to imply movement. Sound designers also worked with each artist to ensure the immersive experience within their art space is multi-sensory. Through sound research, designers were able to identify and integrate frequencies within certain ranges proven to encourage meditation and reduce anxiety. This technology was utilized in multiple rooms meant to provide a space to decompress within the exhibition – intentional calm in a sensory rich, maximal area.
The entry-point begins with familiar territory that slowly becomes more unreal. The house draws inspiration from real Black communities in the area, with a 70s Tract home facade and garden.
Jess Gallo
Slide down the washer or dryer portals from the into the unknown.
Kate Russell
Design + Execution
Fostering inclusivity was a goal of The Real Unreal, from the increased accessibility in the blueprint of the physical space to collaborating with mainly BIPOC local artists to showcasing LGBTQIA+ pride in a red state. Recognizing the elitist nature of the traditional art world, the artists created spaces prompting awe-inspiring connections regardless of identity, social position, or previous experience with art. Participants come for many reasons, but the transformative art experience they have is unprescribed and unique to them. It’s shared and solo. We ask you to “Come Find Yourselfs,” but you’re already there.
In the first two months, over 150,000 participants pioneered new neural pathways at The Real Unreal. The desire for transformation is deep. We think – if you come here – you will understand on a cellular level that things can be different, you can be different, and what’s unreal can be real.
This is the largest scale artwork completed by the artist to date. Blacklight and calming sound design make this a meditative decompression zone.
Kate Russell
Inside the fridge is an intergalactic travel agency unlike any other with your automated leisure vacation agent.
Kate Russell
A desert vintage refrigerator portal you can roll a wheelchair through makes this crowd favorite accessible for more participants.
Paul Torres
The exterior entrance to the exhibition in a mall in suburbia. Looks like the only type of mall we want to go to.
Kate Russell
The Forest is two-story space accessible by stairs or elevator and features a full canopy of delights plus interactive mushrooms and light and sound design.
Kate Russell
Project Details
Design Team
Meow Wolf
Photo Credits
Kate Russell, Jess Gallo, Paul Torres
Open Date
July 2023