Current Exhibition

SALT: A Design Story

July 12 - October 31, 2026

You may have sprinkled a bit of salt on your food today. You probably didn't think much about it. But salt built cities and generated some of the most breathtaking landscapes on earth.

Few materials have demanded more human ingenuity than salt. How do you harvest it from the sea or from the earth? How do you move it across continents, tax it, trade it, hoard it? How do you turn a mineral into a city, a cathedral, a meal, a political act?

MODA's newest exhibition traces salt from the terraced salt ponds of Peru to the ancient mines of Austria, from kitschy salt and pepper shakers to the Morton's girl who has been walking in the rain since 1914.

It turns out our world is built on salt. SALT: A Design Story includes a tasting station. Come see (and taste) how it all connects.

Featuring:

• Nine cities shaped by salt, from ancient trade routes to industrial company towns

• Extraordinary landscapes created by salt, from Bolivia's mirrored salt flats to Ethiopia's mineral pools

• The engineering humans have devised use to harvest salt

• A revival of small-batch salt makers reviving lost methods and regional flavor

• Wieliczka, a 700-year-old salt mine in Poland with an underground cathedral carved entirely from salt

• A collection of salt and pepper shakers from the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers in Gatlinburg, Tennessee

• A tasting bar featuring salts from around the world, including Atlanta's own Beautiful Briny Sea