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The Sloomoo Institute is a slime mecca designed for dirtying your hands and soothing your brain

The slime-centric take on the experience economy is part play space, part mental escape.

[Image: Sloomoo Institute]

BY Nate Berg4 minute read

The slime community is big online. That’s slime—as in a glob of goo—and community, as in a group of people with a collective interest. People love buying, making, and watching others play with slime, and there are thousands of videos with billions of views on YouTube to prove it.

Now, the slime-obsessed can get gooey in meatspace, too. Sloomoo Institute is a growing slime-based experiential destination, with a recently revamped New York location and two new spaces opening in Chicago and Atlanta in November. With art-influenced design that plays up the general silliness of slime and a perhaps-unexpected emphasis on the mental health benefits of slimeplay, Sloomoo Institute wants its spaces to create an escape for people across the spectrums of age and neurodiversity.

[Image: Sloomoo Institute]

Slime, as many, many online videos will display for hours at a time, is perceived by some people to be extremely soothing. “Slime connects with every one of your senses,” says Sloomoo cofounder Sara Schiller. “Playing with slime actually releases dopamine in your brain and makes you feel good.”

The name, Sloomoo Institute is a play on “a trend from 2017 in the slime community online,” according to Schiller, where vowels in names are replaced with double Os. Visitors to Sloomoo Institute are given name badges where they can display their own slime name. She recalls one family coming in with a grandfather known as Papa. His slime name became Poopoo, much to his grandchildren’s delight. “That really transforms you and gives you permission to play, because you’re no longer yourself,” Schiller says.

[Photo: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

Sloomoo Institute’s first location opened in New York in 2019. After being shuttered by the pandemic, it reopened with a new look by New York-based Method Design in September. The new Chicago and Atlanta opening in November will have similar designs.

[Photo: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

With Technicolor slime and slime-related paraphernalia set on a surprisingly clean white background, Sloomoo Institute has a playful look with a touch of order. The interiors, and the features used to store, dispense, and be splattered with slime are inspired by the works of contemporary artists. Scattered throughout the space are about 25 toilet-bowl-shaped slime vats, each holding five gallons of slime for people to dunk their hands in. They were inspired by the sculptures of artist Tony Cragg. One feature of the space is a slime wall, on which visitors are invited to throw slime—a slime-centric interpretation of artist Yayoi Kusama’s sticker covered Obliteration Room. In one section of the space visitors can use a giant slingshot to shoot gobs of slime at someone sitting in a plexiglass booth. Some companies have used Sloomoo Institute for teambuilding; bosses are typical slingshot targets.

[Image: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

“The design itself is elevated and targeted, in a sense, toward adults,” Schiller says. “It’s really user friendly for kids but very pleasing for adults to want to approach and interact with and look at.”

[Image: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

Oozing slime has inspired much of the design, particularly the long, undulating countertop where visitors can make their own slime concoction, combining one of 40 different colors, 60 different scents, and 150 different charms into a custom slime to take home.

[Image: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

The space is about more than the aesthetics. Cofounder Karen Robinovitz says the concept for Sloomoo Institute came to her in a kind of breakthrough moment after experiencing personal loss and trauma. “That really just knocked me out emotionally, mentally, and put me into a pretty deep place of depression,” Robinovitz says. During a visit with a friend, Robinovitz noticed the friend’s daughter playing with some slime. She sat down next to her. “Before I realized, four hours went by and I was still sitting on the floor playing with her. My friend was like, ‘okay, well, we gotta go now,'” she says. “This was the first time in about two years that I had any true sense of joy and a genuine smile. So I started to buy slime.”

[Image: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

She wanted to share that experience with others, and teamed up with longtime friend Schiller to create what became Sloomoo Institute. Both see the potential for slime-based play to affect people. For Schiller, it’s a space where people who are neurodiverse, like her own daughter, can take in sights, sounds, textures and smells in engaging ways. For Robinovitz, it’s a way to pull the mind into the physical world through play.

[Image: courtesy Sloomoo Institute]

“If you’re really paying attention to the fact that you’re triggering four of your five senses at once, it’s really hard to engage in other stories in your head, with the stress or anxiety of life or the deadline over your head or something that’s happening in the world,” Robinovitz says.

Kids are naturally good at this kind of play, Robinovitz says, but adults often forget how to engage in this way. Slime, she argues, reminds them. “Adults really need to tap into this,” she says. “Kids live here, and adults need to vacation here more.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nate Berg is a staff writer at Fast Company, where he writes about design, architecture, urban development, and industrial design. He has written for publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Wired, the Guardian, Dwell, Wallpaper, and Curbed More


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