Exhibit Space

The Women's and Gender Studies Department and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender host two exhibits per year in the main lobby of Lane Hall, 204 S. State Street. The exhibits, broadly related to issues of women and gender, are available for public viewing Monday through Friday, 9am-4pm.

About the Lane Hall Exhibit Space:

The exhibit space is located in the main lobby of Lane Hall, 204 S. State Street.Exhibits are available for public viewing during regular business hours (or by appointment for class visits). The exhibit budget is small, though some co-sponsorships can be secured. Budget items covered by Women’s and Gender Studies or IRWG normally include installation, installation supplies, and opening reception. Co-sponsorship funds may be raised for framing, shipping and expenses related to an artist’s talk, including honorarium, airfare and lodging and meals. Artist’s talks are given on occasion, but normally the artist says a few words during the opening reception.

Questions? Contact LaneHallExhibits@umich.edu

Nominate an Exhibit or Artist for the Lane Hall Exhibit Space
Winter Semester 2024 and Fall Semester 2024

The Women's and Gender Studies Department and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender invite nominations for an exhibit to be hosted in the Lane Hall Exhibit Space from January–July or August–December 2024. Proposed exhibits should be broadly related to issues of women and gender. The nomination period for the Winter Semester exhibit is September 12 through October 25, 2023. Notification of selection will be made by November 1, 2023.

Nominations for exhibits come from University faculty.

Nominations will go to the Graduate Fellow for Exhibits, and a selection will be made by a committee of faculty and staff from WGS and IRWG for final approval by the director of IRWG and the Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies.

Please send your nomination to LaneHallExhibits@umich.edu by October 25, 2023 at 11:59PM.

If you miss the nomination window this year, please consider nominating in the 2024 call.

Nominations should include the following:

• Description of the artist and/or the work, including how the exhibit relates to issues of women and/or gender. Please include visuals, the artist’s website (if applicable), and contact information.
• Estimated overall cost, including contribution by the artist or nominating unit.
• Programming that might be organized around the exhibit, including class visits, artist talk, workshops. The selection committee prioritizes exhibits that seek to connect with the university and local community through interactive exhibition elements, programs, resources, and other educational and creative avenues.
• Special handling the exhibit might require, including framing and shipping.
• When the work is available. For consideration for the Winter 2024 exhibit, work must be available December 15, 2023. For the Fall 2024 exhibit, work must be available July 15, 2024. Please indicate if the work would be available for one or both exhibit periods or for a future exhibit (e.g., the following academic year).
• Other considerations.

Exhibit requirements:

• Artworks should be two-dimensional, able to be displayed on gallery walls, extending no more than 4 inches from the wall
• The exhibit space includes approximately 132.5 linear feet of display wall. Adjustable track lighting runs on a picture rail 7’2” from the floor along the display walls.
• Small three-dimensional objects can be displayed in two 48” x 48”x 18” locked display cases.
• The exhibit space cannot accommodate large, three dimensional installations.

About the Lane Hall Exhibit Space:

• The exhibit space is located in the main lobby of Lane Hall, 204 S. State Street.
• Exhibits are available for public viewing during regular business hours (or by appointment for class visits).
• The exhibit budget is small, though some co-sponsorships may be sought.
• Budget items covered by Women’s and Gender Studies or IRWG normally include installation, installation supplies, and opening reception, limited to $1,500.
• Co-sponsorship funds may be raised for framing, shipping and expenses related to an artist’s talk, including honorarium, airfare and lodging and meals. Artist’s talks are given on occasion, but normally the artist says a few words during the opening reception.
• The nominating faculty member or unit is responsible for fundraising to cover additional exhibit costs.

Questions? Contact LaneHallExhibits@umich.edu 

!!!techn010ffspring!!!

About the exhibit:

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.

Exhibit Sponsors: 

• Department of Women's & Gender Studies
• Institute for Research on Women & Gender (IRWG)
• Arts & Resistance