MeTeORiC

Meteoric is an arts and film festival in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It’s free and open to all, with film screenings, workshops, art installations, performances, facilitated conversations, public forums, and collective meals. It’s a collaboration between a diverse group of acclaimed artists and storytellers from Truth or Consequences and around the world who have worked intimately since 2018 to re-envision what a community led festival could be.

The dream, the commitment

Meteoric is committed to building a world based on collaboration, self-expression and community leadership. Truth or Consequences is the first iteration of a model that has the power to change how communities work together, how art can directly impact the sustainability of places, and how people from diverse backgrounds can learn from each other and create together.

We’re building a festival where you’re not just transported through art, but the very act of showing up transports you. We’re building a festival that aims to shift the model for economic growth in small towns. We’re building a festival dedicated to transforming the way we listen and connect to one another. We’re building a festival on the core tenets of great art: unconstrained, always transforming, playful, deeply thoughtful, and conversational. We’re building a festival that is building the kind of world we want to live in.

How it is curated

The festival was created through a horizontal and decentralized curation. Artists from Truth or Consequences and around the world are given an open invitation to design their participation: if you could make, show, or create something deeply unconstrained, what would you do? How can you use this festival to create something you’ve been dreaming of? What results spans every conventional category — films, installations, aerial performances, knife forging, poetry, collective dinners, public forums, audio interviews, sculpture, music, and much more. Preference goes to artists who come and stay the weekend: the festival is trying to create a community for those days, and the first thing we are looking for is people who come to TorC.

As Kyle put it in the festival’s early years, it is “a means to inspire people to create the experience they want to see in the world — we are just merely an entity to help make that happen. All art is judged merely by the fact that it exists and is communicating — nothing more.”

Editions

• 2019. The first MeTeORiC, in October 2019, with some thirty artists all over town, among them Peter Mettler screening Gambling, Gods and LSD in person, Lauren McCarthy’s Welcomer installed in hotel rooms, Hannah Jayanti’s Truth or Consequences screened as a rough cut under the desert stars for the people in the film, Jeannie Ortiz’s aerial collaboration, and Olin B. West’s Medusa.
• 2020–2021. The pandemic stopped it.
• 2022. The festival came back.
• 2024. February 23–25, across a dozen venues on Broadway and Main, with Tatsuya Nakatani performing twice in one night. On the Saturday the festival hosted the Grand Opening of Truth or Consequences Contemporary at 312 Main, with our first show, Home.
• 2025. February 21–23.
• 2027. The next MeTeORiC. The festival planned for February 2026 has been postponed until 2027. We’re very sorry.

The festival also gave us a name. Kyle made a schedule poster for an early MeTeORiC that was so complicated and overly informative it confused nearly everyone. The confusion was intentional, part of the mystery and magic of the weekend, and somehow everyone ended up exactly where they were supposed to be. That is where the name Intentionally Confusing came from.

The festival’s own site will be back at meteoric.torc.art. To get involved, get in touch.