Colorful Venezuelan beet salad, Iraqi beef kebabs and rare, vegan-option mole verde: These are just a few of Spice Kitchen Incubator’s mouth-watering, unique recipes from around the world. Tasting these hard-to-find dishes at Spice Kitchen supports immigrant and refugee chefs getting their restaurant or catering businesses started.

Tales about the founding of the artist collective Meow Wolf—now a growing interactive entertainment-arts company—are as legendary as the company’s mind-bending art installations. Meow Wolf’s name came out of a hat, and some of the artist collective’s initial investment came from fantasy writer George R. R. Martin (of Game of Thrones fame). Meow Wolf’s newest art experience is a 52,000-square-foot, otherworldly shopping excursion called Omega Mart, located in Las Vegas’ AREA15.

Utah is home to an art scene that stretches across the state, with subversive art pockets in unlikely places, but sometimes, Salt Lake City’s presence eclipses work and communities in smaller towns. Just outside of Moab is one such unassuming town, sandwiched between the prismatic Book Cliffs and the dusty railroad tracks—Green River. With a population of just under 1,000, Green River hosts the arts organization Epicenter, whose founders worked in Green River as AmeriCorps volunteers.

Featuring crisp, aesthetic shots and chilly synths, The Runner by Boy Harsher is part horror, part ’80s music video and part meta-documentary. Harsher uses the genre-bending approach to place viewers in an uneasy space where the camera doesn’t delineate realities—in one scene, the shot moves from a person watching a music video to being inside the TV’s picture.

The audience shifted nervously in their seats as mushroom clouds blossomed and Cold War events unfolded in Dominic Cooke’s Ironbark. Based on true events, it made its world premiere this week at Sundance 2020. Ironbark is the codename for historical Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), one of the most prolific and important U.S. informants in history. Penkovsky passed over 5,000 photographs of classified military, political and economic documents to British and U.S. intelligence forces.

Bradley began mountaineering guiding on Denali and has been with UMA since 1994. He supervises a host of world-class ice climbing guides. These friendly guides provide beginners with a solid foundation and plenty of fun. “In a UMA class, a ‘rookie’ ice climber can follow a guide up or top-rope an ice formation and have fun becoming a novice ice climber,” says Bradley. You don’t need to be seasoned in mountaineering to have a good time. Ice climbing requires an average level of strength and fitn

The lights go on, the curtains part and the stage floods with sound—the experience of live theater is brighter than ever before. A spotlight is on the Utah theater scene, with local playwrights and performers eager to step onstage for an expanding audience in several new venues. Award-winning and veteran storytellers at the Salt Lake Acting Company and Plan-B Theatre Company reflect on the human experience and shed light on important social topics. The Off Broadway Theatre helps audiences laugh their troubles away with witty parodies and live improv. The Hale Centre Theatre, meanwhile, serves big and beloved Broadway hits like Les Misérables and Guys and Dolls for fans of all ages. These four theaters showcase the diverse magic of the local theater scene with a uniquely Utah flavor.

Getting in the right mood to talk about Mirmsy’s (aka Miriam Barse) art involves borrowing a line from the cartoon cult classic Adventure Time: “C’mon, grab your friends!” Let’s frolic in the upbeat pastels and pop-culture puns that make up the loveable and unique artistry of Mirmsy. Web and graphic designer, jewelry and upcycled clothing maker, and overall jack-of-all-trades, Mirmsy’s wares are the stuff of Instagram impulse buys and unstoppable late-night giggling.

2020 has been one of the most widespread experiences of shared trauma in living memory. Every community has experienced a portion of the anxiety and pain, but not equally. The shared experience of the pandemic and recession has given people and institutions long segregated into comfortably distinct worlds a common denominator—and it’s forcing us to witness the impact of disasters on poor communities, especially those of color.