TRAVEL LOG
A Magical Fun House
Meow Wolf—an artists collective based in New Mexico—built a 22,000sf experience custom-made for the weird times we now live in.
If you sojourn to Santa Fe, New Mexico take your creative inner creature to Meow Wolf: The House of Eternal Return; A mind-bending, interactive, explorable art experience where everything is possible and you feel the twisting of space and time.
Upon entering the darkened space you immediately come upon a peculiar Victorian manor set into green turf grass. “Outside” it’s twilight and the lights inside this curious house beckon. A stop at the mailbox reveals the beginning of a mystery—the story of the disappearance of the Selig family.
Step onto the porch and then inside. Encounter a small drawing room to the left with a chair, table, and easel upon which sits an unfinished painting. Pinned to the easel is a letter. Another clue is the mysterious disappearance of the Selig family. Looking closer, read the family’s diaries and thumb through their photo albums to uncover clues explaining their disappearance.
Where to now? Choose the kitchen. The old cabinets and vintage wallpaper make the kitchen feel dusty and abandoned. Freely poke around the cupboards. Surprises await. Notice a ghostly bright light emanating from the refrigerator. Strange. What could that be? Grab the handle, open up, and a blinding light shines from a corridor that leads somewhere. Step inside.
Walk into the light and burrow into wonders beyond imagination. Colors and patterns from room-to-room keep curiosity wondering and feet moving. Discover a vintage trailer floating in the air or another buried in a cavern. Find a treehouse that seems impossible to get to. Then suddenly, with the turn of a corner, you are there. Animals from across the Universe hang about like big game trophies. Bizarre rooms dripping with neon connect to more rooms flashing with light.
“It’s a worm-hole riddled play house.” —Rolling Stone
Room after room, there are uncountable spaces that push and pull from one end of the building to the other. Finding the way out is a challenge. Whenever you think you have it figured out, another encounter, a new room, a new beast emerges. The experience is alive, and only when it is done with you will the exit be revealed. Is that really the way out?
A heavy metal door swings out into the Universe we recognize. Stepping into the daylight, wonder what is really real for a moment. Can the Eternal Return reshape the perception and make this reality a little more magical?
To believe in magic is to open up to the outer world of possibility. Take a moment to consider the time-warped spaces and fantastical places near you. Spend time in them. Dream and Wander. And, if you ever drive through Santa Fe, New Mexico, walk into the refrigerator and fall out of this world and into pure magic, just like the Selig family did many years ago.
