immersive experience project
Funded by the City of Bellingham and Tourism to enhance Downtown activation & beautification, Paper Whale is activating vacant storefronts in our City center.
The Immersive Experience Project
Like a vacant house, vacant storefronts are challenging for an urban neighborhood. We want people to feel the vibrancy of city life, pedestrians moving between businesses and accepting invitations to explore new possibilities for our future. So, we asked ourselves, why let these spaces sit empty?
We present "The Immersive Experience Project," a project born from the brain of Paper Whale (inspired by the Art House Project in Japan), a moment in time with a goal to utilize vacant spaces in the interim during (what we hope to be) a short-term vacancy. Each immersive experience is temporary, inspiring our community to take pause and look more closely, while also helping property owners secure a long-term tenant.​​
Dive Into the Experience
Launching in Spring 2025, Paper Whale has matched four artist proposals with four vacancies in downtown Bellingham, challenging each local artist to transform a vacant storefront into an alternate reality. Several FREE public openings will include:
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May 2, 5:00 - 9:00pm | Opening Release Party & First Friday Art Walk
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May 9, 5:30 - 9:00 pm | Wine Walk *this is a ticketed event
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June 6, 5:00 - 9:00pm | First Friday Art Walk
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July 3, 5:00 - 9:00pm | First Thursday Art Walk (moved for the holiday weekend)
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Additional openings and events will be released in the coming weeks: Follow Paper Whale on social media to track new event dates as they're added.
The Immersive Spaces
Each of the four Immersive Experience Projects are temporary pop-up galleries, and the spaces they are occupying are FOR LEASE, so we encourage you to visit them before they're gone—like all good things in life, opportunities like these come and go.
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Digital Extrusions | 1015 N. State St. (main street entrance) | Leasing contact
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The Age of Nostalgia | 1015 N. State St. (alley entrance) | Leasing contact
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Sylvan Passage | 1329 N. State St. | (360) 676-4866
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Luminous Growth | 215 Prospect St. | Leasing contact
Digital Extrusions is a three-dimensional artwork that explores the realm of holographics. Working with sheer fabrics suspended in space, combined with projected motion graphics, this work brings 2D digital art into real three-dimensional space; blurring the lines between our digital worlds and our real life experiences.
The core is a mirrored infinity space, creating a fully immersive environment that expands beyond physical boundaries. At the heart of the installation is a towering stack of 30 CRT televisions, forming a sculptural media shrine.
A multi-sensory installation blending play, nature, folklore, surrealism, and transporting music. Guests of all ages drift through the enchanting striped fabric passages, surrounded by mist and projections of cedar tree forests. Soft blue-green light fills the shifting and billowing environment. A white rabbit guides the way, leading through the dimensions of the three unique spaces...
Combining three interactive light sculptures, Luminous Growth transports you into a glowing forest of fungi and slime mold. Neon mushrooms from Lumenoki flicker and pulse; tubes of neon from Lumenoki: Turkey Tail sprout from logs and giant spores from Reverie: Myxogastria tower around you. Each piece reacts to your presence and the forest communes with and around you.
Meet the Artists
Matt Remsbecher (b. 1985) is an interdisciplinary creator and artist who works across varying mediums of paint, plaster, photography, sound and light. Pulling from his profession as a designer and builder, Matt explores a variety of techniques and ideas that range from the minimal to the ethereal; organic forms found through materialism, repetition and light. Matt's work evokes a calm subtle nature, while leaving us pondering where art may start and end. IG: @Largr_
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Barrett Lizza is an artist drawn to the forgotten and the strange, piecing together worlds from discarded relics and weathered curiosities. Based in Bellingham, Washington, he works with whatever he can salvage—antiques, oddities, fragments of the past—giving them new life through sculptures, installations, and assembly art that feel both haunting and familiar. His work leans into the uncanny, where beauty and decay tangle together.
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Ms. Tide Walker is a designer specializing in immersive environments that merge historical narratives, architecture, and human interaction. With a background in product design, jewelry, accessories, and clothing, as well as a degree in Art History, her work bridges the past and present, crafting spaces that are both visually striking and deeply experiential.
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A Seattle-based artist known for his captivating sculptures that often integrate light, fire, and interactive elements. Having exhibited at Burning Man, Portland Winter Light Festival, Oregon Zoo Lights and San Juan Islands Museum of Art, his pieces stand as an intersection between artistry and audience participation.
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