CLIENT: invest in our land
American Farmers For Conservation
Services
Creative Direction
Strategy & Planning
Experience Design
Venue
Congress Building — Rayburn Foyer
The Challenge
Invest in Our Land brought American agriculture to the halls of Congress. Dirt Empire was proud to contribute to this effort by designing and supervising the immersive films for a reception at the Rayburn House Office Building Foyer.
Our role was to translate the daily realities of American farmers and ranchers into a visual narrative suited for the historic architecture of the Capitol. These films supported the launch of American Farmers for Conservation, a grassroots network focused on securing the future of conservation funding. By projecting these stories directly onto the marble walls of the foyer, we aimed to provide a meaningful backdrop for the delegation's meetings with congressional leadership.
The installation had a very demanding one-day turnaround and our production partners at Quince Imaging executed the installation beautifully, ensuring that the visual delivery matched the prestige of such a storied venue. It was a rare opportunity to collaborate with our clients Invest In Our Land and Monument Advocacy on behalf of American producers.
The evening featured a performance by the Cantate Choir and remarks from the Invest in Our Land leadership Rebecca Bartels, South Dakota Represenative Dusty Johnson and producers Rodney Koch and Michael Fruge. We are grateful to have played a part in helping this group of farmers and ranchers share their message with policymakers in Washington.
Photos from the live event at the Rayburn Foyer in Congress
The PROCESS
Dirt Empire's role was to work closely with Invest In Our Land's beautifully shot and edited archive of farmer stories and adapt it to the 3-walled projection environment of the Rayburn Foyer. We had the great fortune of work with a team that knew their content intimately and were adept at crafting a new visual narrative that was suited for the vast interior of the Rayburn. We created two projection exepriences to transform the space. - One that was akin to a museum installation - looping portraits of all the farmers and the main show a second narrative and dialogue-driven for the reception to accompany the remarks, live accompaniment and audience.
Image Left: Previsualization of content & Image Right: Projection setup and calibration at Rayburn Foyer
Motion Graphics & pre-viz at scale
Dirt Empire created an entire realistic VR previsualization of the experience on behalf of Invest In Our Land in order to see the stories at scale and envision the visual conditions of the venue realistically. This empowered our clients both on the policy and production side to make salient decisions throughout the process on messaging, pacing, layout of events in room from the very outset of the project.
Exhibition Photo of " Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City", The Shed, 2025
The Outcome
The event was a tremendous success that brought 300 hundred attendees into the room comprised of lawmakers, farmers, conservation and agricultural academics and professionals. This was a big first for Dirt Empire being able to pring immersive filmmaking to the nation's capital and make a direct appeal to lawmakers and constituents in service of a valuable cause.
Credits
March 18th, 2026
Created by Dirt Empire
Creative Director
Nicholas Rubin
Lead Producer
Clementine Seely
Art Director and Senior Motion Designer
Maxx Berkowitz
Story Editor (Anthem)
Mitch Martin
Story Editor (Portraits)
Alistair Griffin
3D Artists
Gregory Guy
3D Artist
Illia Kulishko
3D Artist
Adam Zen
Projection by Quince Imaging
Technical Director
Colin Shock
Technical Director
Colin Shock
Producers
Jay Hutchison & David Price
@2023 Dirt Empire