On May 11, Mia opens Global Movements, a four-day series of programs on immigration, migration, and the arts. Among the presenters are several Twin Cities artists, and we asked them how art has been important in their lives and work. Here are some of their responses. Cy Thao A Hmong painter and former state legislator whose epic 50-painting series The Hmong Migration  ...

In this land of ice and snow, summer is something magical. Almost in the blink of an eye, the world becomes lush and green and you can finally feel your toes! As the snow retreats, 10,000 lakes suddenly appear, offering respite from the humidity of the summer heat. But warmer weather brings another, less pleasant transformation:  ...

They say we do not have them in Norway, but several times I saw them over the sea, and once I saw one skip across the lane like a silly little girl. The colors are different in Norway—more gray and green over the water, more blurry white on land—but they exist. Those who say they do  ...

The Doll At first I thought, with some worry, that I was to be given to the child. The girl watched with impatience as I was formed, appendages of bamboo wrapped in cloth until I resembled a crude doll of a man. We, myself and the girl, discovered at the same time that I was  ...

Back in 2008, a group of staffers at Mia, calling themselves the Green Team, began meeting to discuss potential reforms, ways that the museum could reduce its impact on the environment. It was never going to be easy—preserving the art means regulating the environment. Also, the museum is old. And money, as in any non-profit, is  ...

Back in 2008, a group of staffers at Mia, calling themselves the Green Team, began meeting to discuss potential reforms, ways that the museum could reduce its impact on the environment. It was never going to be easy—preserving the art means regulating the environment. Also, the museum is old. And money, as in any non-profit, is  ...

This week, Mia unveils six newly reinterpreted period rooms as part of its Living Rooms project, a push to invigorate these beloved spaces with fresh perspectives. I was the curator charged with reinstalling Mia’s two English period rooms to consider the domestic life of science circa 250 years ago, the gilded early days of “modern” science—before it became sequestered in laboratories and siloed academic departments. A  ...

A a new study confirms that not only do we perceive the left side of our face as being more attractive, other people do, too.* Australian researchers reviewed 2,000 selfies and found that a majority showed the left side of the face—what researchers have taken to calling “left-side bias.” The presumptive reason? The left side of the face  ...

In the mid-2000s, when the artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phunam Thuc Ha, and Matt Lucero came together in Vietnam, they decided to register as an ad agency—to make art, not ads. It was a workaround. They wanted to shoot a documentary on Vietnam’s first graffiti artists, who were just starting to make their mark on  ...

In the mid-2000s, when the artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phunam Thuc Ha, and Matt Lucero came together in Vietnam, they decided to register as an ad agency—to make art, not ads. It was a workaround. They wanted to shoot a documentary on Vietnam’s first graffiti artists, who were just starting to make their mark on  ...