Photo by Films About Artists courtesy of Fathom Architecture.

Late last year, STÖR: an immersive experience opened in Basecamp Studios 2 at the historic Bergman Luggage Building in Belltown. Over 700 artists and supporters celebrated the opening of the IKEA-meets-art-exhibit experience, featuring works from 37 local artists.

Curated by artists Lilia Deering and Mary Anne Carter, STÖR was supported in part by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Hope Corps program as part of Mayor Harrel’s Downtown Activation Plan.

The exhibition, open from October 25, 2024 to January 10, 2025, saw over 10,000 visitors throughout its run, “pulling in new people from different communities every time,” shared Mary Anne Carter. Their Black Friday event had sales that matched the opening, and the closing event in a cold Seattle January was the largest sales day they saw.

With lines out the door almost every day, the curators shared their sentiments about the continue audience interest through the duration of the exhibit:

We feel proud and excited by the results of the show. We set out to reduce perceived barriers to art by positioning a group of 37 PNW based artists in a more familiar space that people knew how to shop and surpassed our goals with so many visitors and buyers.”
-Curators Mary Anne Carter and Lilia Deering

There was a wide array of visitors, ranging from those who didn’t frequently attend art shows, to tourists, students, and seniors excited to visit Downtown Seattle after a long pause since the pandemic. Some even stumbled in thinking it was a real IKEA and stayed to enjoy the art. One thing all the visitors had in common was their expressed interest in participating in future iterations.

“It was exciting to see the momentum build and engage new communities for the full run of the show.”
-Mary Anne Carter