Meow Wolf’s first interactive installation celebrates its tenth anniversary, marking an era of staggering growth and expansion, with even more to come.
Ten years ago, the scrappy Santa Fe–based artist collective known as Meow Wolf ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, unleashing the House of Eternal Return—an immersive, narrative-laden, and kaleidoscopic art installation housed in a former bowling alley on Rufina Circle. Within a year of opening, the installation had exceeded all expectations, drawing in a staggering attendance of 400,000 and lodging itself in the cultural imaginary in a big way.
They now bring in millions of visitors yearly, and have spawned four other locations across the nation in the Meow Wolf multiverse—Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Convergence Station in Denver (both opened 2021), and in Texas, The Real Unreal in Grapevine (opened 2023) and Radio Tave in Houston (opened 2024)—each formed around its own distinct world.
They’re not done growing, either. Two new exhibitions are planned: one for Los Angeles in late 2026, followed by New York City in late 2027.
“People like to ask if we ever dreamed we’d be where we are now, and the answer is a resounding no, we had no idea,” says Caity Kennedy, one of the founders.
The House of Eternal Return was a breakthrough interactive-installation attraction in what has become a growing phenomenon around the world. Meow Wolf also embarked on a mission to turn their local artist collective, founded in 2008, into a national network, offering full-time employment to artists and creatives—a segment of society for whom opportunities are often scarce and hard-fought. Meow Wolf currently employs 950 people across its many locations, although that number has fluctuated amid shifts in leadership, unionization efforts, and rounds of layoffs—growing pains that came with being a collective-turned-corporation.
Meow Wolf’s vision and ambition have always been lofty, driving the team’s pace of learning on-the-job. “There isn’t time in a life to learn everything you need to know before you need to know it, so here’s to ten more years of ‘building the plane as we fly it,’” says Kennedy. “Moving forward, may one of our top priorities always be supporting the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and creative well-being of all involved.
