A cake made into a pie chart by Martí Guixé, a baguette repurposed as a shackle by Alexis Georgacopoulos and a knife and fork made from a potato and a leek by Peter Marigold were captured in photographer Daniel Stier’s clinical yet surreal style during a late night lock-in at Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (MART). Because the objects had to be shot outside of museum hours, Stier and his assistant were granted access in the dead of night with just an elusive night guard for company: “It was just a beautiful atmosphere to be locked in alone in the museum in that crazy exhibition.” The northern Italian museum’s current exhibition The Food Project takes Good Design by Bruno Munari as a starting point to showcase food-inspired imagery derived from artists, designers and chefs including Bompas & Parr, Marcel Wanders, Carlo Cracco and Philippe Starck. Steir, who has shot for Wallpaper*, The New York Times’ T Magazine and W as well as exhibiting internationally at venues including the Moscow House of Photography and the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie in Hyères, was attracted to the show's mash-up potential. “I wanted to create a set of images that’s pitched somewhere between a test kitchen and a science lab,” he explains. “With a bit of a mad-scientist twist.”

The Food Project runs through June 2 at MART.