Lane Hall Exhibit explores embodiments of gender and grief

In a new exhibit at the University of Michigan’s Lane Hall, Rogério M. Pinto (School of Social Work) invites audiences to take part in his exploration of myriad embodied gender states based on 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 autoethnography, Pinto created a one-person play (Marília, 2015) and site-specific installation performance (The Realm of the Dead, 2022). These works explore the intersecting and shaping layers of Pinto’s childhood traumas, gender states, and life experience—a story of the struggles, fears, and accomplishments he experienced as an immigrant to the United States. 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. The exhibit is presented by presented by the Department of Women’s & Gender Studies, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and the School of Social Work. 

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 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 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. It is free and open to the public, weekdays from 9am-4pm. University faculty may request tours or additional hours for class visits by emailing LaneHallExhibits@umich.edu.