The group show opened last Friday in the former travel agency on North 7th. The space still smells faintly of laminated brochures for Hawaiian cruises nobody from here takes.

Curator Mara Lindquist, who also works the early shift at the Co-op bakery, said the theme emerged from conversations in the checkout line. “Everyone is waiting for something,” she said. “The light to turn. The lease to renew. The snow to melt. The snow to come back.”

One installation consists of forty-seven takeout coffee cups arranged by temperature. Another is a looping video of the left-turn arrow at 19th and Main. A third piece is simply the gallery’s rental agreement, framed and lit, with the escalation clause highlighted in gold leaf.

Local painter Jules Ottenheimer contributed a series of watercolors depicting the same cottage on South Tracy over twelve years. In the first it has a vegetable garden. In the last it has a three-car garage and a property tax assessment that makes the artist laugh until she cries. “I just paint what I see,” Ottenheimer said. “The crying part happens later.”

The opening attracted the usual mix of MSU faculty, retirees who remember when North 7th was two lanes, and a couple visiting from Austin who kept saying the space had “good bones” and “incredible potential.” They asked the gallerist for a card. She gave them a coaster with the Wi-Fi password.

Interim Space runs on a month-to-month lease. The building sold last Tuesday to an LLC registered in Delaware. The new owners have not responded to requests for comment. The show runs through September or until the locks change, whichever comes first.

The coffee cups are still cooling.