Remember when all you needed was an empty cardboard box—and possibly some scissors and glue—to journey into fantastical, unknown worlds?

Return to that magical realm this summer with WildCard, brought to you by the Exploratorium and the Cardboard Institute of Technology (C.I.T.).

Armed with box cutters and glue guns, C.I.T. artists are bringing a cardboard cosmos to life at the Exploratorium. And no one, not even the artists themselves, can predict exactly where this adventure in world-building wizardry will lead.

Take a journey through a visionary dreamscape crafted completely out of cardboard, with sites, sounds, and surprises lurking around each bend: a village in a vortex, a crashed steamboat on a winding river, peepholes into the underworld, a desert motel, lush forests, and fiery volcanoes. From Sasquatch to Stonehenge, all bets are on at WildCard.

If the urge to build your own world grabs you too—and chances are it will—jump in and join us on Friday evenings all summer for activities and workshops where you can do some creative crafting of your own.

After a trip through WildCard, you’ll never think inside the box again.

How to Build with Cardboard

Remember when all you needed was an empty cardboard box—and possibly some scissors and glue—to journey into fantastical, unknown worlds?

Writer Mary Roach Reveals How to Read a Cardboard Box

Box tattoos and bees? After spending time with our WildCard team, Mary Roach made some of her own surprising discoveries about cardboard boxes.