2025 Annual Report

Still of a performance showcasing a woman spotlighted on stage with her arms out to both sides and her left leg raised to hip height with foot pointed. A brightly colored geometric pattern in the background is juxtaposed by a black wall.

Kite, Wičháȟpi Wóihaŋbleya (Dreamlike Star), 2024. Performance: MIT List Visual Arts Center. Photo: Melissa Blackall

List Center public programs provide points of engagement for both in-person and remote audiences with the full standards of accessibility. We continue to build new audiences across MIT and Cambridge with in-person programs, while reaching a global audience with varied remote offerings.

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Connect at the List Center

Last year, the List Center launched a new program inviting Boston’s graduate art students to connect with peers from other institutions while exploring the List’s exhibitions and engaging in themes of community, placemaking, and professional development. The popular event has been held at the start of each semester since its inception, with three iterations to date. It has featured activities such as exhibition tours, speed networking, make-kits, and a Graduate Student Talk—all accompanied by food, beverages, and raffle prizes. The List Center has seen strong turnout from artists and students in the Greater Boston area, eager to connect with peers in their field.

Two young women looking at a poster board depicting research for pigeon politics in a gallery space at the MIT List Visual Arts Center.

Student Stories 

For the past six years, the List Center has interviewed students who have had the opportunity to hang artworks from the Student Lending Art Program in their living space. This year, List staff members Cassidy Westjohn and Gwyneth Jackman interviewed five MIT students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to hear how the program has impacted them. In this year’s Student Stories, readers hear from Indrani Saha, who describes how her artwork inspired her to begin collecting art, and from Jerry Aloor, who credits the program as a catalyst for her interest in art and later collaborated with the List Center on the Art Breaks series.

A woman sitting on a blue couch with three patterned pillows looking towards a window at the right side of the frame. There are plants at the base of the window. A black and white photograph in a black frame is to the left of the window, next to a standing lamp.

Art Break

At the end of the fall 2024 semester, the List Center launched a new program, Art Break, designed with mental rejuvenation in mind. Art Break offers students a space to tinker and be creative through drop-in sessions scheduled during finals season. Art supplies and calming beverages were placed in the List Center atrium to invite students to pause and de-stress. The first iteration featured hot MEM tea and origami. In May 2025, the List Center collaborated with MIT’s AeroAstro Department Resources for Easing Friction and Stress (dREFS) and Jasmine Jerry Aloor, a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It featured infused waters, snacks provided by dREFS, and materials for creating a wire object with two balanced counterweights. 

Two hands bending wire with wire cutters. There is a small mobile with a green paper lantern to the left side of the hands, a group of paper clips and a stack of unfolded paper in front of the hands, and scissors with another wire mobile to the right of the hands.

2025 Max Wasserman Forum: Visions of Sustainability

For the 2025 Max Wasserman Forum: Visions of Sustainability, the List Center convened artists, scholars, and curators to discuss climate change in the context of arts and museums. This forum focused on rethinking how art and cultural organizations operate, the disproportionate effects of climate change on vulnerable populations, and the transformative role of art and artists. The keynote lecture was delivered by Torkwase Dyson.

Speakers included artists Amy Balkin, Beatrice Glow, Adam Khalil, Lee Pivnik, Sahar Qawasmi, Jen de los Reyes, Nida Sinnokrot, Lan Tuazon, and Michael Wang, along with curators and scholars Stefanie Hessler, Janelle Knox-Hayes, and Sarah Montross.

Four people sitting in a line in bright red chairs on a stage in front of a projector screen. The person on the furthest left hand side of the stage is speaking to the panelist.

Vera List Prize

Each year, the List Visual Arts Center participates in MIT’s Karmel Writing Prize. In 2025, List staff members Emily Garner and Chris Hoodlet served as jurors for the Vera List Prize, which invited student essays focused on the visual arts. With a strong group of submissions, the List Center published the essays on their website to share them with a wider audience.

Ari Peró, who recently earned a double major in Urban Science & Planning and Computer Science and Music, won first prize for their essay, Politics of Visibility: Contemporary Art as a Catalyst for Social Change, which proposes how institutions can become more ethical and inclusive in their approaches to showcasing art and artists. Second prize went to Kartik Chandra, a PhD candidate in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. His essay, Learning to Look/See Like a Scientist, recounts how encountering an artwork at the Mauritshuis Museum informed his research in cognitive science.

Still showing a massive crowd of protestors wearing pink pussy hats and holding signs, filling the screen.

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