Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, Prof. Rogério M. Pinto of the U-M School of Social Work opens his mixed-media art installation Colorism at U-M’s Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Room 1019, Ann Arbor. Colorism remains on view through March 13, Tuesdays through Fridays and Sundays, 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m. Visitors may meet the artist in person from 1:00-4:00 pm Mondays Feb. 17 and 24, and March 10. Colorism sponsors and collaborators include: U-M School of Social Work; Michigan Medicine Dermatology; and the U-M Arts Initiative.
Colorism comprises works of video, still photography, sculpture and audience interaction, questioning our psychosocial and biological ideas about skin color and treatment of people, based on skin tones, including within racial groups. Colorism asks, What do we know about the root causes of prejudice toward skin color? What can we do to improve interpersonal and structural colorism?
Rogério M. Pinto, Ph.D. is the Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work at the U-M School of Social Work. He also has appointments at U-M’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance and Stamps School of Art and Design. He developed Colorism under his University Diversity & Social Transformation Professorship, for outstanding senior U-M faculty with track records of scholarship and service toward Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. His previous work includes My Gender States (2024), at U-M’s Lane Hall/ Institute for Research on Women and Gender; an installation performance, Realm of the Dead (2021-2022), at the U-M School of Social Work; and Marília (2015), a one-person play at the United Solo Festival on New York City’s Theater Row (Festival award for Best Documentary Script).
Pinto’s careers in social work and the arts were inspired by growing up poor and queer during a dictatorship in Brazil and presenting as an ethnic and sexual minority in the United States. Says Pinto, “My exhibit questions how humans came to use the largest and most beautiful organ of the body to assign social and cultural value to some and to denigrate others. I use art and science to create video, photographic and sculptural elements to reveal misconceptions and poke fun at how skin color has been used to separate rather than unite us.”
Colorism features videography by Sly Pup Productions, interview video/photography by Emerson Granillo; video direction by Erwin Maas, set and prop construction by Sarah Tanner, and makeup by David West, Linda Long and Valentina Hosey. Christopher Keram Bichakjian, MD, Dermatology Chair at Michigan Medicine, biopsied Prof. Pinto’s skin on camera for the exhibit.
Full list of sponsors and collaborators: U-M School of Social Work; Michigan Medicine Dermatology; U-M Center for Research on Learning and Teaching; U-M Arts Initiative; Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research; National Center for Institutional Diversity; U-M African Studies Center; U-M Poverty Solutions; Institute for Research on Women & Gender; U-M Institute for Humanities; U-M LSA Latina/o Studies; U-M LSA Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies; U-M Center for World Performance Studies; Leon Speakers, Ann Arbor.
