written by Kay Heino, photographed by Eric Butler This was the first time I was available to go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. When I went into the museum it was absolutely gorgeous, then I went to the Leslie Barlow '16 MAEP exhibition and had my breath taken completely from me. The MAEP is open to all artists living and working in the state of Minnesota. When you first walk into the exhibition you walk into a room with seats to enjoy a short film created to describe the rest of the exhibition. It had guest speakers talking about their life stories, and about their relationship to race. After sitting through some of the film, I walked into the other room attached to the exhibition. The walls are lined with beautiful, colorful, and exquisite paintings of portraits of people. The portraits were filled with people and families from different cultures and different races. There were people of Native American descent , African American descent, African descent and so many others. They all included well crafted backgrounds that went well with the portraits of the main subjects. At the end of the room had two couches, a coffee table, and a bookshelf. On the book shelf had many books about the topic of race and racism. The books were children's books, textbooks, and documentation books. The exhibit opened my mind and made me rethink the idea of race. It was beautifully laid out and all the pieces of the exhibit were created masterfully. Categories Alumni