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On May 8 and 9, the Hood Museum of Art hosted a collage workshop with visiting pop artist Michael Albert in celebration of “American Pop,” an exhibition on view at the Hood Museum of Art from Dec. 13, 2025 through Nov. 7 of this year. The exhibition is part of a larger series commemorating the United States’ 250th anniversary through an examination of identity and consumer culture in American works.
Albert is best known for his handmade “Cerealism” collages, which he creates from cereal boxes and other consumer packaging to transform familiar commercial imagery into pop art. During the two-day event, participants used everyday recycled packaging to create their own collages inspired by Albert’s visual style. In an interview with The Dartmouth, Albert said his workshops are intentionally inclusive of all ages and experience levels, welcoming children, teens, adults, artists and first-time creators alike.
Albert said his choice of materials reflects his interest in the contrast between mass production and handmade art.
“I wanted to create art that people could immediately relate to and recognize, could look at and say ‘Oh I know what that is,’” Albert said. He added that the materials “operate on a lot of levels at once — cubism, mosaic, pop art, text-based art — but they also make people think.”
Albert acknowledged that his chosen medium is not always taken seriously.
“They’re garbage, they’re cereal boxes, they’re kids’ cereals,” he said. “But I’m really interested in the contrast of taking something ordinary and disposable and using it to recreate something as important and meaningful as the Gettysburg Address.”
He added that cereal boxes occupy a unique place in American visual culture because of the scale at which they are reproduced. While a newspaper like The New York Times prints a million copies only once, cereal boxes are printed “tens or even hundreds of millions” of times with the same image, he said. His process, he said, reverses that scale: “It’s all handmade with scissors and glue.”
Workshop attendees Odete Coss ’29 and Anadelcarmen Esparza Quevedo ’29 said they were drawn to the event by the medium’s “nostalgic and accessible nature.” Coss described growing up making collages with her sister from craft-store magazines and advertisements, creating “dream bedrooms” and imagined future homes from cut-out images and text. Coming to the workshop felt like “reconnecting with a creative practice she had not had time for recently amid the pace of Dartmouth life,” she said.
Esparza Quevedo said she was surprised by how “immersive and detailed the process became” once she began working with the recycled materials.
“I didn’t think I would find all of these letters,” Esparza Quevedo added. “It actually isn’t that hard once you get into the flow.”
Coss said the workshop also gave her a new appreciation for Albert’s work, describing collage as “unexpectedly meticulous and time-consuming” once she began carefully cutting and arranging the materials herself. She added that collage felt more accessible than other forms of art because the process “relies more on arranging familiar materials than mastering technical skill.” She compared it to making art with a younger sibling, saying “collage allows everyone to participate without feeling intimidated or left behind.”
Albert said he hopes participants take away “a sense of how accessible and collaborative artmaking can be through a hands-on experience.”
“It’s really an accessible art form where people can create art without worrying about drawing a face perfectly,” he said. “…People of all ages really fall right into it. It becomes relaxing, people start chatting with each other and the boxes are already so full of images, words and phrases that ideas naturally start coming into your head.”
The workshop concluded with participants taking home the collages they had assembled over the course of the afternoon. “American Pop” remains on view at the Hood Museum through Nov. 7.
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