FANTASYLAND is a site-specific mixed media installation that explores the rise and fall of a fantastical empire and its uncertain future. Using a variety of mediums and objects, such as giant plush toys, inflatable beach balls, deconstructed and re-assembled mannequins, an unfinished carousel structure, recycled parachute canopies, wallpaper, a glowing neon sign, and performance videos, the artist underscores American society’s surplus of objects, brutally intoxicating consumerism, and unbridled desire for material possessions that form an ironic, ultimate beacon and capitalist symbol of freedom. In this work, Grokhovsky investigates the American Dream through an immigrant lens, exposing a desirable yet unattainable mirage. FANTASYLAND reveals the eternal human longing for a better life and for connection that remains hidden and festering beneath the polite façade of shopping malls, big box stores, and marketplace websites. In this post-industrial landscape, the enchanted forests and docile characters of Disney fairy tales become sinister metaphors for the “land of opportunity,” an alluring veneer for a wasteland of human-made, consumerist debris.