Inhabiting a vacant industrial warehouse and lot in Los Angeles, the three-acre project The 14th Factory is the brainchild of British artist Simon Birch. Birch and 20 other artists have created 14 linked spaces with paintings, performance art, video art, sculptures, and installation work. A “collaboratively fabricated adventure” is created for visitors and is intended as a foil to the current, divided political and social climate. One room, titled “The Barmecide Feast,” is a replica of a set piece from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“My hope for the 14th Factory is to bring a broad range of minds together, to uplift and inspire, ignite conversation, action and solutions but also to provoke,” Birth says. “There are installations here that discuss love, loss, fear, pain, hope .. .our shared experience, but that also ask the question; as civilizations have risen and fallen, are we now at the brink of collapse or the start of a wonderful new chapter? But beyond these elements, this duality, The 14th Factory is, we hope, a safe haven to bring people together under one roof, so that all may go on this journey, immerse in this experience and perhaps become transformed.”
Participating artists include ceramic artist Sara Tse, graphic designer/photographer Stanley Wong, Cang Xin, composer Gary Gunn, and several others. A documentary is being created about the experience, with visitors opting in to potentially be featured in it.