LIKE MANY MEOW WOLF EXHIBITS, THERE’S THE ELEMENT OF LIMINALITY — A VORTEX THAT CONSUMES THE PARTICIPANT AND TAKES THEM TO WHEREVER THEY NEED TO BE TAKEN. BY RIVKA YEKER There is something so sweet and tingly about nostalgia as a feeling, as a daydream, as a “Private Session” on Spotify. I’m sure we’ve all heard it before, but there’s the idea that music becomes a lot harder to latch onto as we get older, unlike the stuff we listened to as preteens and teenagers. That music is what makes our hearts warm and our minds at ease — even if it was some cheesy nü metal record, an emo serenade, or a hit pop single that showed up on every radio station. This feeling is part of why we keep coming back to what’s comfortable — both as individuals and as a society. We complain there are too many sequels and remakes, yet for so many, we’re afraid to watch anything outside of what we’re used to. A lot of us stick to reruns or watching whatever we know will please us — a desire to cling onto what feels familiar is part of the human psyche. Yet, when we do decide to take the plunge and experience new media, we find ourselves connecting dots. If we have any sort of reference points ourselves, we might comment and say, “This reminds me of a Judy Chicago piece I saw at a gallery once” or “This takes me back to when I saw Star Wars in theaters” — we intrinsically look for ways to feel related to what we see; it’s part of why nostalgia is so enticing and such a popular tool for artists and creators of all kind. The market of nostalgia means many different things, sometimes at once — it’s the perfect cash cow for reunion tours, film remakes, fashion, No. 126 etc. — and it also makes for compelling art. The film Barbie (2023) made $1.446 billion in the box office because of many reasons, including all the pink, a summer release, the Barbieheimer spectacle, impeccable marketing — all catering to a huge audience — but mostly because it relied on the nostalgia of Barbie itself. In my opinion, the film wasn’t exceptional, but its marketing felt everlasting; it was impossible to escape it. As soon as the campaign began, Barbie trends re-emerged. There was a new TV show called Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge on HGTV, major brand collaborations with companies like Gap, Crocs and Forever 21, and #Barbiecore became a trending topic on TikTok, which somehow resurged the popularity of Aéropostale, a company that went bankrupt in 2016. If you’re interested in the deep dive, check out TIME’s online article, The Long, Complicated, and Very Pink History of Barbiecore. Barbie is only a recent example of the nostalgia market, one that specifically chose a very popular reference point to build upon, but it recreated a moment that triggered something in all of our memory banks, whether it was good, bad or complicated. When it comes to Meow Wolf, immersive exhibitions like Omega Mart scream a sort of nostalgia that feels very 90s/early 00s. There’s bright lights, grocery stores, childhood snacks, the desire to touch everything, products that probably have wacky commercials. Like many Meow Wolf exhibits, there’s the element of liminality — a vortex that consumes the COSMOHEDRON IN CONVERGENCE STATION | PHOTO BY ATLAS MEDIA
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