MIT Community

The List Visual Arts Center is more than a contemporary art museum: it’s an active gathering place, education center, and workspace for college students right on MIT’s campus. Read more to find out how you can get involved with student-centered events and programs.  

Student Lending Art Program

Explore over 700 works of art that comprise MIT’s Student Lending Art Collection. Works in this collection are made available to students each September, which they can live with for the school year.

Two people attend the MIT List Arts Center SLAP Reception 2019.

Campus Loan Art Program

Through the Campus Loan Art Program, we are able to make artwork from our permanent collection available to Administration, Faculty, and Staff offices, so that the MIT campus itself serves as our museum.

Desks at the Hayden Memorial Library line a wall, displaying four framed works from the Campus Loan Program.

Graduate Student Talks

Experience museum mashups: view exhibitions through the eyes of MIT graduate students in the interdisciplinary Graduate Student Gallery Talk series. If you're part of the MIT community and interested in leading a Graduate Student Talk, please visit our Open Positions.

MIT graduate student sits presenting a talk to an audience of four people.

Tour Guides

The List Center's Tour Guide program hires MIT undergraduates and MIT community members as guides for our public art and exhibitions. Tour Guides learn about the artists, artworks, and issues surrounding contemporary art first-hand, while helping others discover the visual world around them. 

A group of six women standing side by side outside in a stone courtyard with buildings in the background.

Vera List Prize

The MIT List Visual Arts Center sponsors the annual Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts. This writing contest is part of the Karmel Writing Prizes and is open to MIT undergraduate and graduate students.

A large-scale mural of distorted graphite-like text and a beer can discarded in corner.

Independent Activities Period (IAP)

Independent Activities Period (IAP) is a four-week period in January during which faculty and students are freed from the rigors of regularly scheduled classes for flexible teaching and learning. The List Visual Arts Center participates annually by hosting workshops or experiences related to the field of contemporary art.

Green envelope sketch with abstract shapes and a red star.