MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY
Unique exhibit in Santa Fe
Alice fell down a rabbit SANTA FE, N.M hole and found Wonderland. I went through the refrigerator.
Others arrived via a portal in the bedroom closet, and some little people — or those with better knees than mine — crawled through the living-room fireplace.
What awaited on the other side was pretty trippy — a surreal world worthy of a Lewis Carroll tale but created by Meow Wolf, a crew of 150 young artists in Santa Fe, N.M.
Formally called The House of Eternal Return, the attraction is hard to define — and even harder to describe.
Some people call it a hands-on art installation or an immersive art experience. But to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, I’m calling it a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
The riddle/mystery/enigma posed to visitors at the House of Eternal Return is what happened to the family who lived in the now abandoned two-storey Victorian home.
Upon entry it looks like a normal middle-class house circa 1975. But a slew of clues — and more than a few red herrings — point to darker, perhaps nefarious, occurrences. Visitors are encouraged to push buttons, snoop in cupboards and open drawers.
Wherever the Seligs went, it looks like they left in a hurry. There are unopened letters in the mailbox, laundry piled atop the washing machine, and a newspaper dated CITY SCOOP For a city of 80,000, Santa Fe punches way above its weight when it comes to tourism.
Artists and writers, hippies and history buffs have long been drawn there.
The funky New Mexico capital is touted as a cultural hot spot, a great arts destination, the perfect guys or girlfriends getaway, a foodie or shopper’s paradise and an ideal spot for soft, and not so soft, adventure — all made better because of 325 days of sunshine.
It is home to the world-renowned Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, more than a dozen other excellent museums, the one-kilometre-long Canyon Road Art District — with its 100 galleries, studios, boutiques and restaurants — and the country’s top art markets.
Its compact downtown is oriented around the green and historic Plaza — which is ringed by shops, restaurants and the adobe Palace of the Governors — making it one of the most walkable cities in the United States. For places you can’t reach on foot, a free shuttle provides transportation between points of interest. for the day of their disappearance open on the kitchen table.
Oh look, some photographs have been removed from the wall, and the words “evidence removed by agent 82” written in their place. Look closer and you’ll notice things in every room that are a little, or a lot, “off ” — newspaper clippings about freak storms, mirrors with shadowy holograms, strange ripples on the dining-room ceiling and walls, and is that a miniature person flailing about at the bottom of the toilet bowl? And then there’s the fridge. Instead of being full of milk, butter, eggs and produce, the fridge door swings open onto an eerily lit passageway that leads to the “multiverse” — an alternate dimension full of crazy neon sci-fi stuff pointing to possible time travel, alien abductions, a haunted treehouse, musical dinosaur bones — and who knows what else.
No matter. Visitors of all ages seem to be having great fun trying to solve the puzzle. The level of detail is truly astonishing and we are only scratching the surface of this multi-layer story. I’m sure it will take many visits to figure out the ultimate fate of this fictional family.
To keep things interesting for return visitors, exhibits are periodically tweaked and new features added.
The House of Eternal Return sits inside the Meow Wolf Art Complex, a former bowling alley in an industrial area outside Santa Fe’s downtown core. It also houses two non-profit arts groups.
The property is owned by Santa Fe resident and Meow Wolf ’s main patron, George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame.
Some 400,000 people have visited the house since it opened last March, making it the latest major art attraction making news in a place known for its major art attractions.