The Women's 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, 8am-5pm.
Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States
Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States runs through August 1. Interrupted Life exhibits five linked installation pieces examining women's experiences of incarceration alongside contemporary issues of human rights and social justice. The exhibit conveys the stark realities of incarceration, especially its impact on mothers and their children. It features artwork created by inmates as well as actual correspondence between an incarcerated mother and her daughter.
Rickie Solinger is a historian and curator who writes about reproductive and welfare politics, and the relationships of race and class to these issues. She authored the award-winning Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade. Her new book is Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know. For more than two decades, Solinger has been curating traveling exhibitions about these matters, aiming to "interrupt the curriculum."
This exhibit is hosted by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Women's Studies Department, with support from Afroamerican and African Studies, American Culture, Center for the Education of Women, English Language and Literature, Ford School of Public Policy, History, History of Art, Institute for the Humanities, Rackham Graduate School, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design, School of Social Work, and the Understanding Race Theme Semester.
Related to this, the 18th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners is at the Duderstadt Center Gallery through April 3.
Click here to see an article by Rickie Solinger about the exhibit.
