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Visitors to MIT earlier this month may have spotted what looked like a slow — and highly participatory — art heist: Over the course of three days, from Sept. 10 to 12, 593 students entered the List Visual Arts Center and left with pieces of its collection. This year marks the 45th anniversary of MIT’s Student Loan Art Program: After viewing the collection, choosing their favorites, and participating in a lottery, lucky graduate students and undergrads are given the opportunity to bring home one of the List’s works of art. They may then spend the year taking catnaps beneath it, eating ramen noodles alongside it, and asking it for help with p-sets — in other words, generally getting to know “their” artwork. The Student Loan Art Collection draws from four smaller collections. The oldest, the Catherine N. Stratton Collection of Graphic Arts, was established in 1966 by Catherine “Kay” Stratton, the wife...