A gumball machine that spits out small handmade sculptures. The deconstructed interior of an old Honda Civic. An interactive virtual reality experience that explores what it’s like to be an immigrant.

These are just a few of the installations that await visitors of the VCUarts MFA thesis exhibition that opens on Friday, April 11. Taking place at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Anderson, VCUarts’ on-campus gallery, the showcase is a rite of passage for VCU’s Master of Fine Arts students, marking the culmination of two years of research and studio practice.

“It occupies all of the main galleries at the ICA,” explains guest curator Misa Jeffereis, who is also associate curator of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. “There’s also [art displayed in] interstitial spaces, so the non-traditional, non-gallery spots, like in the forum and the basement and hallways. It really is an entire museum-wide activation, which is really exciting.”

The annual exhibition has taken place for more than half a century at the Anderson; Friday’s opening will mark the first time that the show will be held at the ICA as well. The change comes less than a year after the ICA was integrated into VCU’s School of the Arts.

“It’s a really nice way to bridge the School of the Arts with the ICA, and everyone here is really excited about it,” Jeffereis says. “It’s a way to collaborate and create more dialogue.”

The exhibition will highlight the work of 26 artists across six VCUarts departments: Craft/Material Studies, Graphic Design, Kinetic Imaging, Painting and Printmaking, Photography and Film, and Sculpture and Extended Media.

Previously, when the exhibition was held solely at the Anderson, artwork had to be shown in two two-week batches because of space constraints. The additional room afforded by the ICA will allow all of the students’ art to be shown at the same time. The Anderson is being utilized by artists who requested to use the gallery, which was established in 1931 and was the only Richmond venue to show modern art until the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts opened in 1936.

“The Anderson is a much more raw space, and that lends to complete alterations and transformations of the space that you’ll see this year,” explains Egbert Vongmalaithong, assistant curator of the ICA. “At the ICA, it is more of a group show or a group exhibition, so you’re seeing many different artists and mediums contained in the gallery spaces at once.”

Interactivity is a throughline with many of the works, including installations that visitors are encouraged to sit on.

“The artists are thinking about how people get to encounter their work, and I do think that’s a little bit unique for the ICA,” Jeffereis says. “There’s less of ‘this is the art, and you are the viewer.’ You get to be more involved than you normally would.”

One example is Rebecca Oh’s gumball machine that sells visitors small sculptures in exchange for $1 in quarters. Another is Weitong “ShanMu” Sun’s VR installation “Ideal Home,” which explores the immigrant experience and the meaning of home.

“You interact by pointing and clicking the different text options, and it’s like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ experience,” Vongmalaithong says. “Some of the dialogue boxes that you see are amalgamated from real stories of home.”

Diego Pablo Málaga’s installation is a tribute Guadalupe, his well-loved Honda Civic. The work features four car seats, a windshield and a bespoke owner’s manual.

“He’s really interested in thinking about cars as this sign of class and luxury,” Jeffereis says. “His car is falling apart, and the AC isn’t working, and it needs all these repairs. He’s adorned it with dice. He’s treated it like it’s a person, in some ways, that he’s grown up with and helped shape who he is.”

Hassler Gomez has created works that initially appear to be part of an HVAC system.

“What might look like a regular vent is actually a sculpture,” Vongmalaithong explains. “They require the visitor to look pretty closely to understand what’s going on.”

Even the ICA’s coat rack will host student art; Hannah Rotwein’s basement installation involves found materials and a reworked baby mobile.

“There’s a tenuous nature to the work,” Jeffereis says. “Things are leaning up against parts of the coat rack. Things are hanging from the rack and there’s things in the lockers. It’s all very delicate. She’s really interested in that vulnerability of things leaning on each other and depending on each other as a metaphor for how [humans] do.”

Friday’s opening event will include live performances by some of the artists, as well as film screenings by Quinn Standley and Sina Khani in the ICA’s auditorium. Suzy Slykin has installed a hospital bed in the gallery with musical instruments attached to it. On Friday, she’ll take up residence in the bed for the duration of the opening.

“She’s really interested in the medical industrial complex, so she has made her own hospital room within the gallery,” Jeffereis says.

Rasim Bayramov will pass out tickets to visitors in a re-creation of a bureaucratic waiting room.

“In my understanding of the piece, you won’t ever have your number called, so it’s this endless waiting game,” Jeffereis says.

Debra Dowden-Crockett has hired models to show off jewelry pieces she has created.

“Her piece is called ‘A Date With Death,’ so there will be a lingering, rotting fruit smell in her space,” Vongmalaithong says. “She’s adorned her room with organic materials that are meant to symbolize death and will actually be decaying.”

At the Anderson, Yvonne LeBien will stage a live performance.

“She’s sort of reciting transphobic comments as a way to reclaim agency,” Vongmalaithong says. “It’s a pretty intense performance. She plans on showing this multiple times throughout the run of the exhibition.”

Jeffereis says presenting these works at the ICA offers “a pretty special moment” for artists and visitors alike.

“That’s the end goal for most of these artists: having a museum show,” she says. “It’s great to see what this next generation of artists are thinking about and making. We get to tap into that.”

The VCUarts MFA Thesis Exhibition will be on display from April 11-May 11 at the at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, 601 W. Broad St., and the Anderson, 907 1/2 W. Franklin St. The opening event will take place April 11 from 5 to 8 p.m. Free.