Some first-year graduate students in the School of Visual Arts are taking a fresh approach with their annual Zoller Gallery exhibition, a display that this year involves a Ping Pong performance, live entertainment and a community-constructed hot dog cart.

The Zoller Gallery will be hosting a First Year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Exhibition that officially opens tonight at 7 with an artist's reception and a stand-up comic. The showcase includes paintings, sculpture, video performances and other forms of art submitted by 13 contributing graduate students.

Zoller Gallery coordinator Kevin Hsieh said the gallery provides the space and he offers guidance, but ultimately the students are the ones making the decisions.

Emily Silver, a first-year graduate student in the School of Visual Arts who is studying sculpture, said she was one of two students nominated to put the exhibition together. She said usually the graduate students get together and divide up gallery space, but this year she wanted to get more people involved.

"We are trying to pull some creative tactic," she said. There will be special events every night, which include workshops, lectures and live entertainment. Silver said T-shirts and a Web site, www.mashfab.com, were also created.

Silver said the artists were allotted enough gallery space to submit multiple pieces and some artists chose to work with one another and create collaborative works. Silver has a sculpture on display.

"I have three animal heads, and they're ridiculous," she said. "They take on human qualities and kind of are talking to one another."

The other nominated exhibition coordinator was James Johnson, also a first-year graduate student in the School of Visual Arts. He is currently studying new media, which he described as seamlessly integrating art and technology together.

Johnson's piece is a video performance that he described as a "vanquishing" of his pop culture enemies.

Johnson said he and Silver wanted to find a way to involve the community with their art. "We want community members to help us build this hot dog cart," he said. The project will begin construction tonight and continue while the exhibition is running, which is until Wednesday. "It's going to be a collaborative effort, and we will document it," Johnson said.

But the hot dog cart won't be selling hot dogs. Instead, they will take good food that was thrown out and try to resell it. He added that not only will this unite the community, but it will also make a point about how much is wasted daily.