Reflecting the artist’s interest in storytelling and myth as forces that shape how the world is understood, Masako Miki: Shapeshifters, Sprites, and Spirits invites visitors to imagine how traditional stories can speak to contemporary socio-political realities, and how expressions of imagination and joy are radical acts with the potential to disrupt prevailing cultural discourse and inspire a more compassionate and harmonious future.

Cafeteria by Yifan Jiang is the next installation in the Moody’s Off the Wall series. It was inspired by Jiang’s frequent visits to the Brochstein Pavilion while she audited philosophy classes at Rice University during her two-year Core Residency Program at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. To create this work, Jiang drew from Houston’s culinary histories, illustrating pastries through an expressive, freehand approach. Overlaid with acrylic paint, the mural depicts the silhouettes of windswept oak trees, birds in flight, and passing students, their shadows mirroring the world outside. In this space where contemplation and leisure intersect, Jiang’s Cafeteria raises questions about what we know, what reality is, and where it begins to slip into a dream.