Weldon Kennedy from London, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Geoff Carter
Alternate realities existing on an invisible plane is a commonly recurring theme in modern science (and literary) fiction. Everything from Harry Potter to The Matrix to The Butterfly Effect to Pan’s Labyrinth to Everything Everywhere All at Once features parallel universes just beyond the reach of human senses—or sensibilities.
This idea, cojoined with a community art project, is the backbone behind the Meow Wolf Immersive Art Experience. According to “Our Story” on the Meow Wolf website, “Meow Wolf began in 2008 as an informal DIY collective of Santa Fe artists. These collaborative roots lay the foundation for Meow Wolf’s distinctive style of immersive, maximalist environments that encourage audience participation.” The key concepts here—as informed by my own experience—are “maximalist” and “audience participation.” As we discovered during our recent visit to Santa Fe, there’s nothing quite like Meow Wolf.
Although it features the work of dozens of artists, it’s not a gallery. Although it is framed by a narrative about the Selig family searching for a lost child in another dimension, it’s not only a story. Although it contains dozens of exhibits, it’s not a museum. Although it contains slides, hidden passageways, false doors, and even a refrigerator portal, it’s not an amusement park. So what the hell is it?
Since reductive definitions don’t really do seem to do it justice, it’s appropriate to say Meow Wolf is fun, beautiful, challenging, and always surprising. According to the origin story on its website, https://meowwolf.com, new and more unorthodox artists in the Santa Fe art scene felt marginalized and decided to create a venue to showcase their collective vision. Needing serious financing to realize their dream, they called upon no other than George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Fire and Ice series—on which the hit HBO series Game of Thrones was based—to buy an old bowling alley to house what is not Meow Wolf.
Upon arriving at Meow Wolf, visitors are greeted by a statue of a giant spider, a robot sniffing a flower, and a wolf. A sign in the shape of a bowling pin (which makes sense after discovering the history of the place) proclaims the name of the place. Of course, nothing here has to make sense.
We waited in line for a short time before entering into the space, past the café and into the museum/gallery/park proper. Visitors enter a darkened room containing a fully constructed suburban home—the Selig home. We enter the front door and walk into fully furnished and apparently inhabited living room, dining room, and kitchen. A cryptic letter and some notes are left on the dining room table, detailing the apparent disappearance of one of the family members into a strange place. More clues, including diagrams of a pet hamster, are scattered throughout the house. My own personal instinct was to find the full story behind this mystery, but the creators of this universe—or universes—weren’t going to make anything that easy. There was no clearly delineated backstory here—only hints and clues. We had to do the work.
As we walked into the living room, I noticed a strange light coming from the fireplace. Looking closer, it was obvious that there was a larger space behind it. I crouched down and entered a room of fantastically colored figures which led into another space containing what appeared to be a skeleton consisting of fluorescent bones. One fantastic space led to another. A black and white room resembling a panel from a graphic novel—or perhaps a set from a Tim Burton movie—led into other even more fantastic spaces. One room resembled a carnival space, another an odd mash-up of Peter Max and Soul Train illustrations. Another room contained dozens of vintage TVs arrayed in rows on the wall. Beautifully detailed dioramas—one containing the mystery hamster—were sprinkled throughout.
The walk itself was a sensory adventure. Colors, sounds, movement, and shape assailed the visitor at nearly every turn. And then, going through one portal in what appeared to be the interior of a flying saucer, we found ourselves reentering the Selig home through the back of a walk-in closet and coming into one of the upstairs bedrooms. More clues as to what happened lay about up here. Apparently, one of the Selig children had somehow entered the door into a different dimension—or parallel universe(s)—and had become lost, and now the rest of the family was bent on finding him.
Besides being a treat for the retina and cerebral cortex, Meow Wolf is an act of discovery. Framed by the lost child/parallel universe narrative, the artwork, like scattered breadcrumbs, leads us on divergent paths to understand what happened to the Seligs. Underlying this intention is the nearly subliminal absorption of the work itself; because the artworks are placed in a narrative context, their power as individual pieces may at first be overlooked, but as links in a chain, their collective effect on the viewer is not only complemented but multiplied. Backtracking through the exhibits, as is inevitable while wending through the house and its extra-universal environs, one is struck by the effects of a specific piece—or space—in the context of a new sequence. The pieces speak differently when seen in these unexpected perspectives.
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Larry Lamsa, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A page on the website, The House of Eternal Return describes why the Santa Fe Meow Wolf is called the “House of Eternal Return”, referring of course to the Selig home. The site goes on to describe the different spaces in the facility like “The Caves”, “Beam Space”, “The Forest”, “Fancy Town”, and “Portals Bermuda”. Seeing the boundaries between these spaces and the descriptions of their relationships to the overarching narrative is fascinating, but also somehow strangely disappointing, like knowing the process of how a flower blooms somehow tarnishes its mystique.
The process of wandering through the dozens of wonderfully conceived and rendered spaces and pieces not only creates a sense of wonder and surprise, but also stokes—at least in this visitor—a persistent curiosity. Who did this one? What the hell is a travel agency doing down here?
The real charm of Meow Wolf lies not only in its variety, its collaborative history, or its sheer volume. Meow Wolf is all about exploration, discovery, and synthesis. It is about making sense of the world through art. This concept is so cleverly rendered through “The House of Eternal Return” theme that visitors may not realize they are in an experience of revelation and self-discovery until sometime afterwards.
There is nothing quite like Meow Wolf. While I have not visited the Denver or Las Vegas venues, I can say that the Santa Fe experience is well worth the time and the effort. It might not be a museum, a gallery, or an amusement park, but it is one thing: a fascinatingly beautiful good time.