With kids along, you’ll see it through new eyes
Many Coloradans have made their way through the labyrinthine weirdness of Meow Wolf Denver since it opened in the fall of 2021. The huge, interactive art installation shoehorned into the Mousetrap between I-70 and I-25 has become a major tourist draw to the city, at the same time locals have learned to visit during the less-busy weekday hours since weekends at Meow Wolf can get pretty packed.
Having already been twice, I was a bit hesitant to go again. But my wife really wanted to take our two granddaughters, and so eschewing the advice above, we visited Meow Wolf Convergence Station on a recent Saturday.
Even having made my way through the installation twice, there were still a number of things I came across that I’d either not noticed before or forgotten. Convergence Station doesn’t have much in the way of rotating exhibits, but the permanent installation is so extraordinarily busy and detailed that it’s easy to miss some good stuff on a first or even second pass. Since Kaite (10) and Lynsey (8) are now old enough to survive in a crowd and possessed of the open-minded curiosity one needs to grok Meow Wolf, it turned out to be a fun afternoon traipsing through the multitudinous rooms and areas that comprise the space.
One of the greatest things about Meow Wolf compared to, say, an art or history museum, is the almost complete absence of “don’t touch” signs. Busy kids like to touch everything, and Meow Wolf encourages that throughout. And since much of the exhibit is experiential, there were plenty of opportunities for the girls to get right in the thick of it. That includes everything from popping up out of the floor as prairie dogs in one area, sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship in another, “booping” their activity card at a variety of stations strewn throughout and touching, spinning, pushing, grabbing and walking on just about every square inch of the exhibit.
Above: Fun in the Perplexiplex
After a solid two hours going through it all, we found at the very end what would prove to be their favorite part of the whole experience: the Perplexiplex. Nominally a small performance venue on the ground floor by the cafeteria, the Perplexiplex is also possessed of an extraordinary lighting system that magically allows people to see their footsteps mirrored on the floor in a number of different designs. With booming symphonic music accompanying, the Perplexiplex was full of people enjoying the interactive light show, with kids in particular running and weaving throughout the crowd as they described patterns on the floor with their feet.
The “Hello Food” area is a great way to end (or start) a day at Meow Wolf, with a nice selection of local food and drink that’s a big step up quality-wise from what you’d find at, say, Elitch’s. And it’s hard to escape the grounds without grabbing a few T-shirts or other memorabilia from the gift shop.
Meow Wolf isn’t a cheap day out with kids, but it’s likely a lot more memorable than many other attractions and certainly more unique.
A day at the Wolf: Click to view gallery
‘Portals of Theseus’ debuts at Meow Wolf
Meow Wolf Convergence Station in Denver does have one area for rotating exhibits: the Galleri Gallery located in the C Street area. Showing now through March is Denver-based interdisciplinary artist Lares Feliciano’s collection of work, Portals of Theseus. The works will be on view and available to purchase through March. Feliciano uses collage, installation, and animation to create worlds where all of time exists at once, bringing marginalized experiences front and center. Her films are screened worldwide, and her visual art has been exhibited in New York and across Colorado, including the Denver Art Museum. Her latest collection is a meta-commentary on the medium of collage itself … and can even reveal something about ourselves.
A work from Lares Feliciano’s ‘Portals of Theseus’
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