This massive four-story mural represents months of research in the MIA’s collection and hours of sifting through museum catalogs and archived publications. Minneapolis College of Art and Design students Josh Manoles, a graphic designer, and Linnea Stephan, a photographer, selected then cut, clipped, and pasted dozens of digital files of objects from the collection into their collage of high-resolution images printed onto vinyl sheets. For them, the permanent collection on display in the galleries has a parallel presence as scans, JPEG, and TIFF files that exist online and in databases; masterpieces from disparate eras and geographical regions have been recolored, spliced together then layered with different levels of opacity and transparency to highlight formal affinities as well as create a fascinating graphic iconography.

As visitors walk up and down the stairs, they can see the minute textural details on each floor and how each panel has been seamlessly attached to the wall. There are also vantage points on each level where the column-shaped installation can be seen from afar and how it connects all four floors of the staircase, filling the transition space of the Third Avenue lobby.

MCAD@MIA is an ongoing partnership between the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). The goal of this juried collaboration is to encourage art students to create new and innovative work that responds to the architecture, space, and/or collections of the museum. MCAD students are given the unique opportunity to work with the MIA staff in the institutional setting of the museum and gain unique professional experiences. MCAD@MIA promotes an educational collaboration beyond the conventional involvements of communities and museums.