Lane Hall Exhibit Space

“Rogério as Mother,” photo by Niki Williams

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.

Current Exhibit

My Gender States

January 23 - August 13, 2024

Conceived with text by Rogério M. Pinto
Design and construction of original sculptures in collaboration with Sarah Tanner
Photographs by Emerson Granillo, David Newton and Nicholas (Niki) Williams

Rogério M. Pinto (School of Social Work) invites audiences to take part in an exhibition that examines his embodied gender states based on his intersecting childhood traumas and life experiences. In My Gender States, Pinto shares his deep and abiding grief related to the childhood death of his sister and the subsequent gender embodiments that ensued stemming from the belief that he was his deceased sister. 

Using autoethnogrophy to explore intersecting and shaping layers of childhood traumas, gender states, and his life experience—a story of the struggles, fears, and accomplishments he experienced as an immigrant to the United States—Pinto created a one-person play (Marília, 2015) and site-specific installation performance (The Realm of the Dead, 2022). In Realm, audiences circulated around 25 assemblage sculptures created from vintage suitcases and trunks that evoked the cemetery where Pinto’s sister was buried and the literal and figurative baggage that he, a queer immigrant, carried with him. My Gender States is a selection of materials, images, and texts from Marília and Realm curated to more closely examine the themes of gender and sexuality in these works. Collected are portrayals of Pinto’s gender states, gender confusion, gender embodiments, gender doubt, and reactions to gender stigma. 

Rogério M. Pinto (Brazilian, American, b. 1965, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) is a University Diversity Social Transformation Professor; Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work; and Professor of Theatre and Drama, School of Music, Theatre & Dance, at the University of Michigan. Pinto uses art-based methods to conduct community-engaged research in the United States and Brazil.

The photographs used in My Gender States are by my colleagues Emerson Granillo (American, b. 1987); David Newton (American, b. 1993); and Nicholas Williams (American, b. 1994). The Realm assemblages featured in My Gender States were conceived by Rogério Pinto and designed by him, in collaboration with Sarah Tanner. 

My Gender States is on display in the Lane Hall Exhibit Space (first floor, 204 S State St) from January 23, to August 13, 2024. The exhibit is free and open to the public, M-F, 9am-4pm.

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

This exhibit is presented by U-M’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender with support from the School of Social Work.

Photo on right: “Rogério as Mother,” photo by Niki Williams


Past Exhibits

Sarah Buckius: !!!techn010ffspring!!!
August 15 - December 15, 2023
This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.
Watch the artist's talk in Lane Hall

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