CJ Walsh – Looking Outwards 08 – Meow Wolf

The artist that I chose to focus on this week is Meow Wolf, which is an artist collective, not just a singular artist. With over 400 employees with skills in a variety of media, Meow Wolf is known for creating immersive and interactive artistic experiences. I have heard of their work before in other classes, but had never done much research into what the collective actually is. I was intrigued to choose them for this assignment because the work that they do is what I hope to do in my design career and they are an organization that I would dream to work for.

The talk from Eyeo 2019 features two collaborators of Meow Wolf that have been working with the collective from the early days. I appreciate the talk because it’s not just about what they made, but how and why they make it. Their message is really about informing the audience about how a collective exists and operates. It was really interesting to learn about the way that the group progressed through the difficulty of establishing themselves as a productive artist group. I think a strong aspect of their presentation was including progress videos showing how the work and team was structured. It’s a fun and informative way to have more visuals than just photos and diagrams.

The group is known mainly for their project the House of Eternal Return, which is a large immersive experience in Sante Fe. The space that they occupy was bought for them by George R.R. Martin, and he then leased it to them to begin the installation. The visitor enters the space and the experience begins on the lawn of a Victorian house. The house looks normal, until the audience begins to explore and finds portals into other worlds. The artists wanted to create a space where the multiverse is present, somewhere where different dimensions are crashing into each other. Meow Wolf is beginning the process to install these spaces in other cities.

I think that Meow Wolf is an amazing group that is doing extraordinary work that I would very much want to be a part of. I chose to focus on them because their artistic interests really align with me own, and I think the talk they gave spoke a lot to the strides they have made to create a supportive and productive artist collective.