In this video, we visit Alex Prager’s “Mirage Factory,” which the artist created in Miami Beach during Miami Art Week 2025. Alex Prager’s Mirage Factory, presented by Capital One and The Cultivist during Miami Art Week 2025 (December 3–5), transformed Miami Beach’s historic 1940 Beach Theatre on Lincoln Road into a large-scale, walk-through cinematic illusion. Visitors stepped inside three hyper-detailed miniature sets that trace Los Angeles from its pre-development orange-grove myth through Hollywood’s neon promise to a surreal Griffith Park fantasy, complete with a submerged ruby-slipper nod to The Wizard of Oz. Crafted with the same model-makers who collaborate with Wes Anderson, the installation turned viewers into giants within Prager’s signature world of glamorous unease and manufactured dreams. Free and open to the public December 4–5, it also hosted exclusive events, including a Diana Ross performance and a W Magazine party. A portion of gift-shop proceeds benefited Heal the Bay. Widely celebrated as one of the week’s most immersive highlights, Mirage Factory extended Prager’s exploration of illusion, desire, and the seductive artifice of American mythology.

We also meet two of the artists who collaborated on the art installation: Gene F. Warren III (Head Compositor / Master Model Maker at Blind Beagle VFX) and Brandon Knight-Warren (Producer at Blind Beagle VFX). Blind Beagle VFX represents three generations of mastery in visual effects. Founded by Christopher Lee Warren (whose credits include landmark films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Hellboy), the studio carries forward the extraordinary legacy of craftsmanship begun by his father, Gene Warren Jr., and continued from his grandfather, Academy Award–winning pioneer Gene Warren (George Pal’s The Time Machine, 1960). From the groundbreaking fantasy effects of early cinema to the most advanced digital techniques of today, the Warren family has consistently remained at the forefront of cinematic visual storytelling.

Alex Prager, the Los Angeles-based artist, photographer, filmmaker, and director known for her hyper-stylized, surreal tableaux that blend nostalgia, glamour, and unease, debuted her immersive installation Mirage Factory during Miami Art Week 2025. Presented in partnership with Capital One and The Cultivist, the project transformed the historic Beach Theatre—a Streamline Moderne cinema built in 1940 on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach—into a multisensory portal to Los Angeles’ mythic past and present. Housed at 430 Lincoln Road, it ran from December 3 to December 5, 2025.

The installation unfolds as a “visual poem” across three meticulously constructed sets, evoking LA’s evolution from arid promise to cinematic illusion. Prager drew on the city’s foundational contradictions—no water, yet endless reinvention—using to-scale miniatures crafted by a family of model-makers (who’ve collaborated with Wes Anderson). Visitors feel like giants in a dreamscape, towering over vignettes that blur reality and fabrication, inspired by Golden Age Hollywood and Prager’s own Los Feliz roots.

First Room: Artificial Orange Grove – A lush, pre-urbanization idyll representing early 20th-century LA, with hyperreal fruit trees under a painted sky, nodding to the boosters who planted oranges to lure settlers amid water scarcity.

Second Room: Hollywood Boulevard Backdrop – A vibrant dusk scene featuring Thomas Suriya’s iconic “You Are the Star” mural, with glowing neon signs and the hum of ambition.

Third Room: Griffith Park Garden – An emerald-green oasis echoing The Wizard of Oz, complete with a faux pool from which ruby-heeled legs emerge, symbolizing seductive peril and transformation.

Prager’s work probes the “what if” magic of LA—the addictive “beautiful confusion” of corruption, disaster, and possibility—while critiquing manufactured dreams. A gift shop offered exclusive merchandise, with proceeds benefiting Heal the Bay, an LA environmental nonprofit. The experience extended to The Mirage Swim Club at the Shelborne by Proper hotel, featuring a massive Technicolor orange sculpture.

The installation doubled as a hub for exclusive programming: A celebrity chef dinner by James Beard Award-winner Dave Beran on December 3; “Martinis at the Mirage,” a private evening with a surprise musical guest (including a transcendent performance by Diana Ross); A Capital One x W Magazine party on December 5, attended by stars like Alana Haim, Chance the Rapper, Damson Idris, Lori Harvey, Janelle Monáe, Shay Mitchell, and Este Haim.

A live performance brought characters from Prager’s 2025 photograph Beverly Palms Hotel to life, processing through the space after a recorded voiceover: “Welcome to the Mirage Factory, where dreams are made—and broken.” Capital One cardholders accessed VIP perks, including Golden Hour gatherings at the Shelborne.

Mirage Factory aligns with Prager’s oeuvre—seen in projects like Face in the Crowd (2013) and her 2023 solo show at the Garage Museum—extending her exploration of illusion into physical space.