The Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Women’s and Gender Studies Department present a regular schedule of art exhibitions in Lane Hall’s lobby, an intimate space, conducive to seeing, reflection, and study.

Exhibitions feature works in a variety of media, by artists from near and far who are united in their exploration of topical issues and themes that hold meaning for the study of women and gender.

Read the current exhibit Call for Nominations (updated September 2023).

Current Exhibit

Sarah Buckius: !!!techn010ffspring!!!

August 15 - December 15, 2023

Exhibit Summer Hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, & Thursdays from 9am-4pm, or by appointment. Fall Hours (beginning Sept 5): Mon-Fri, 9am-4pm or by appointment.

Events:

• Artist Talk & Opening Reception
  • ​Wednesday, October 4, 4-6pm in Lane Hall
• Patents-By-Women Creative Invention Workshop
  • ​Thursday, October 5, 4-5pm, 2239 Lane Hall
• Interactive Performance! "If (x = Robot), Then (y = Move fast and break things); In the (z = Self-Cleaning House); of (n = Coherent Nonsense); While (m = Being Mechanical Turk);"
  • Friday, October 6, 5-6pm, North Quad Space 2435

Come explore the intricate and interlocking world of Sarah Buckius’ “!!!techn010ffspring!!!” where feminist art meets science and the history of invention. On view at Lane Hall as part of U-M Arts Initiative’s themed semester on Arts & Resistance, “!!!techn010ffspring!!!” critiques the patriarchal paradigms of the STEM field by highlighting the history of women inventors. This exhibition brings conceptual invention in fine art and performance to the disciplines of information technology, robotics, and engineering. Buckius creates “technoffsprings”: complex machines that weave together the history of inventions related to the gendered labor of women, especially regarding women’s social roles as caregivers and subjects of care themselves.

Trained as an engineer and an artist, Buckius’ machines are intentionally complex, layered, and illogical or absurdly logical. In the nature of women’s caregiving, they teeter between order and chaos. Her “digital tinkerings” tell epic tales of motherhood, technology, female bodies, and commerce—both personal and externalized through women’s inventions and early forays that bridged caregiving and commerce. Buckius' work proposes improvisation as a form of absurdist resistance to, and alternative to, patriarchal, capitalist, production-based, and seemingly rational, useful, logical systems.

University of Michigan instructors can email LaneHallExhibits@umich.edu to request a group tour or schedule a class visit.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan and co-sponsored by U-M’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender with support from the Santa Cruz County Arts Council.

 

---

Past Exhibits

Portraits of Feminism in Japan
An exhibit cosponsored by the Center for Japanese Studies, IRWG, and the Department of Women's & Gender Studies.
Featured artists: Elaine Cromie, JenClare B. Gawaran, Takatoshi Hayashi, ivokuma (いぼくま), Nami Kaneko (金子奈美), Kang Jungsook, Lisa Taka Miyagi, Nancy Nishihira (西平・ナンシー), and Shigeki Shibata (柴田滋紀). Curation team: Allison Alexy, Bradly Hammond, Grace Mahoney, and Alexandria Molinari.
January 12 - August 4, 2023
Visit the exhibit website

I have a crisis for you: Women Artists of Ukraine Respond to War
An exhibit curated by Grace Mahoney and Jessica Zychowicz, featuring work by Kinder Album, JT Blatty, Oksana Briukhovetska (MFA, Stamps School of Art and Design), Oksana Kazmina, Sonya Hukaylo, Svetlana Lavochkina, Kateryna Lisovenko, and Lyuba Yakimchuk.
August 25 – December 15, 2022
Visit the exhibit website

Invisible Women: Portraits of Aging in Ukraine
Photographs by Ashley Bigham, Assistant Professor at the Knowlton School of Architecture at the Ohio State University. Watercolors by Grace Mahoney, doctoral student in Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan. 
April 28 – August 18, 2022

New York City’s Vanished Cafeterias
photography exhibit by Marcia Bricker Halperin
January 16 - December 1, 2020

Selections from "Whose Streets? Our Streets!": New York City, 1980-2000
photography exhibition was curated by Tamar W. Carroll, Meg Handler, Mike Kamber and Josh Meltzer with support from the Bronx Documentary Center and the Rochester Institute of Technology
September 3 - December 13, 2019

she was here, once
Multimedia exhibit by Nastassja E. Swift
January 9 - August 2, 2019

Maya Healers: A Thousand Dreams
Photography exhibit by Fran Antmann
September 4 - December 7, 2018

Labors of Love and Loss
Mixed media exhibit by Marianetta Porter & Lisa Olson
January 29 - July 13, 2018

Chicana Fotos
An exhibit of Chicana photography documenting the 1970s by Nancy de los Santos
October 6 - December 13, 2017

Moving Through the Centuries: The Empowerment of U-M Women Through Physical Activity
historical photography & archive exhibition
January 12 - June 30, 2017

Swallowed Whole: A Visual Journey Through Traumatic Injury and Recovery
Works by Heidi Kumao
photography & video exhibition
September 1 - December 20, 2016

Above Ground - 40 Moments of Transformation
photography exhibition of Young Feminist Activism in China
January 26 - July 1, 2016

Stories of Mothers Lost
The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood
August 10 - December 11, 2015