Pride Month: Lane Hall Exhibit celebrates embodiments of gender and identity

In the ongoing exhibit in Lane Hall, Rogério M. Pinto (School of Social Work) invites audiences to join 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 his own subsequent gender embodiments, 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, 2021). These works explore the intersecting 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. Realm included 25 assemblage sculptures created from suitcases and trunks, evoking the cemetery where Pinto’s sister was buried and the “baggage” that Pinto, a queer immigrant, carried. 

My Gender States is a selection of materials, images, and texts from Marília and Realm, curated to 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 the Department of Women’s & Gender Studies, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and the School of Social Work. 

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

About the artist:

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.

Prof. Pinto and his research team recently published findings from a study that used critical dialogue to help heterosexual men confront sexist, homophobic beliefs. Read more about this related study from the UM News Service.