A new episode of the PBS docuseries, Human Footprint.

In it, Biologist Shane Campbell-Staton makes a stop in Las Vegas to explore how supermarkets have reshaped our lives and planet.

Nevada Week's Maria Silva sat down with the creative director of Omega Mart to find out why Human Footprint decided to feature the immersive art experience.

♪♪ (Maria Silva) My first time here at Omega Mart.

You guys are getting a lot of national attention, international attention.

We did have Human Footprint here not too long ago, showcasing you guys.

Talk to us about that experience.

How did all that come about?

(Kent Caldwell) Yeah, Human Footprint, I think the producers were big fans of Meow Wolf.

And when they were looking at the way that mass production, food, and humans' kind of impact on the Earth as a result of that as they were exploring that topic, they knew that we had done sort of a satirical take on those exact mechanisms and supply chains and things like that.

So they reached out to us and interviewed one of our cofounders, Emily Montoya, who's really a big visionary behind this specific concept of Omega Mart.

(Emily Montoya) Growing up, I was always just fascinated by being in a grocery store and just this sense of, like, comfort and abundance and like, you can get anything you want.

It's all here.

Getting older, you know, you start to sort of ask questions like, Well, how did all these things get here?

-And what is the concept?

For someone coming in here for the first time, what can we expect?

-Well, you know, I always like to say we are America's most exceptional grocery store.

I think that that sort of tells you everything and nothing at the same time.

I think that's the way Omega Mart, as a fictional entity, likes to operate.

People also, you know, kind of always ask, Is it an actual grocery store?

No.

Is it a gift shop?

Not really.

Is it a satirical take on capitalism through an immersive art installation?

No, maybe not.

Maybe it's all of that mixed together and none of that at the same time.

But hopefully what it is, is a way for you to experience something that feels familiar and new at the same time and something that sort of shakes you out of your day-to-day.

Yeah.

-It is eye opening.

-Yeah.

And hopefully when you go back to a grocery store and back into your normal context, you know, you're kind of seeing things with a fresh light.

You're being a little more present and noticing more the sort of absurdity that's all around us and then, as Emily said, is like weirdly normalized.

-And consumerism, a big theme in this Human Footprint.

You mentioned also mass food production.

Packaging is also another huge theme that they discuss that, as I'm thinking about this and as I watch that episode, I am going to see things differently when I go to the grocery store.

And they talked about cereal from when we were little kids, that has also been marketed to kids.

-Yeah, yeah.

And so you'll see-- I mean, our graphic designers, we have hundreds of artists that worked on this exhibit and extremely talented at sort of taking those things that, again, we just sort of like accept the way that cereal is marketed towards kids, the way it's happy and bright and colorful, and then we just subvert and twist that a little bit, you know?

We've got, we've got "Oh, Those" the cereal and our charms in that are things like a stapler, you know, and just these sort of absurd things.

And it just, kind of makes you realize, like, What are we really getting when we buy these things?

-Another thing that they discuss is the fact that grocery stores haven't been around for a century.

That wasn't how we got our products.

Now when you walk into a grocery store, thousands and thousands of items.

-Yeah, so much.

And I mean, our exhibit is very maximal in that sense, too.

And I think it has this, you know, again, this familiarity, but it's also quite overwhelming.

And every detail you look at, you just realize the level of intention, you know, that's gone into this exhibit.

And again, it really helps highlight and provide that mirror onto just how kind of insane an actual grocery store can be and the emotions they're pushing on you and the way they're-- yeah.

-And that was something really interesting.

And you brought that up, emotions, these companies have-- they tune into that, and they know, How can I get so-and-so to buy this?

And they market it to that, and they tap into those emotions.

-Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I'll, if I can show you, one of my favorite products here that we offer is called Humane Orchard.

And the idea behind this, which is actually just an apple juice, but we sort of create this fictional world where we let the fruit die a humane death.

We let it choose when it falls off the tree so that, you know, it has a choice.

And this is what we call cruelty-free juice.

So you know, fruit tastes better if it, if it dies when it wants to.

-And those keywords, right, when we go to the grocery store?

-Cruelty-free.

-Cruelty-free, organic, cage-free.

-We have to make such fast decisions, or we feel we have to make such fast decisions.

I think that's another component of what the kind of design and packaging is doing in grocery stores, but it's like it really-- I think this kind of product highlights that we're just sort of looking for a reason to make a decision help us kind of feel good for a moment, even if we don't understand the full story or how absurd that might actually be.

-Now, how long have you been with Omega Mart?

-I've been with Omega Mart for 2 1/2 years.

-And you started as an artist.

Let's talk about how hundreds of artists are involved in this, many of them local artists.

-Yeah.

Yeah, I was a local artist.

I was commissioned.

I have a background in sculpture, so I built a diorama for the exhibit, not in the grocery store itself, but more beyond.

And when I stepped into this role, for me, it was an amazing learning and growth opportunity in understanding the kind of power of graphic design and how all those things can sort of mix and create this, this cool environment here.

-And let's talk about some of the other artists that are involved here.

How do you guys reach out to them?

Do they come to you, what?

-Yeah, we have a mixture of collaborating and in-house artists.

So we have space where we'll invite local and national artists to kind of create and express their own work.

And then we also have a team of in-house graphic designers, sculptors, painters, product designers who are working on the merch.

Like for Omega Mart, we're constantly evolving and changing out the products and things like that.

-What do you hope people take away when they do walk here into Omega Mart?

You have been voted Best Immersive Attraction, but it's so much more than that.

-When people visit Omega Mart, what I really hope is that they kind of come away, or they feel sort of like, like put into this space where they can examine their own life and their own experiences in a very nonjudgmental way.

Like it just sort of is meant to open a conversation with yourself and with the folks around you of, How does this make me feel?

How do I engage with it?

We don't want to be overly, like preachy with a lot of our products.

We want to really just invite that conversation through a real like, show-not-tell approach, if that makes sense.

-It does.

So you've been here about 2 1/2 years.

What have you learned in those 2 1/2 years about this concept?

-So much.

I think that Omega Mart as an art expression is something that is quite difficult to master, because, as we talked about, there's a lot of subtlety and nuance in the way we stay inviting and the way we kind of poke fun or tease and the satire we engage with.

A lot of times, it goes quite deep.

And I think that I've just learned sort of how deep the rabbit hole goes in creating something that just feels so cohesive.

-You guys are always reinventing yourself in new immersive experiences.

What can we expect that we can come in here and check out?

-Yeah, well, right now, over the summer for the next several weeks--this is going through August 9--I've noticed some bizarre characters showing up to shop at Omega Mart.

They've shown up to help pull off this thing we call the "phenomenomaly."

Our phenomenomaly is this really cool migration of this other worldly little creature, and we've got a troupe of about 15 performers--clowns, dancers, puppeteers--bringing this sort of magical story to life that comes on top of the existing exhibit.

-And I feel with you guys, just from walking around, that there's a hidden message in there.

What are you hoping that your guests take away when they do come and experience?

-Experience phenomenomaly?

-Yes, phenomenomaly.

-I think that we're hoping to sort of highlight the beauty that happens when strangers gather and build a sense of community.

We hope to highlight the power and energy of human performance and connection and the real wonder of spending time with one another.

And we do that through these incredible dance pieces, puppeteered moments, and hilarious clowns.

-Oh, I love that.

Phenomenomaly?

-You got it.

-I got it!

All right.

Thank you so much.

-You're welcome.

Thank you.