Art and Art History

Under the Tent: Whirling & Flickering

August 20-October 15, 2026

Reception: August 20, 5-7 pm

Drawn together in graduate school by their mutual love of experimentation and play, Michelle Inez Hinojosa and Barbara Pearsall have built a collaborative practice around analogue animation and vibrant abstraction. Together, their work explores optical toys, immersive installations, and movement. Under the Tent: Whirling & Flickering features kaleidoscopic imagery, flickering abstractions, projection mapping, a hidden trapdoor, and hand-cranked wheels that transform what viewers see. After searching for the perfect venue, they are thrilled to bring their collaborative installation to UNC. Their first public artwork, Turnabout Folly, will debut in Lansing, Michigan in Fall 2026.

Michelle Hinojosa works at the intersection of painting, poetry, and fiber art, where she considers memory, intergenerational trauma, and migration. Born in central Texas, by way of the fields of California and Northern Mexico, Michelle uplifts traditions of making that have provided much-needed stability to a family displaced. Michelle Hinojosa is an Assistant Professor of Art at Pennsylvania State University.

Barbara Pearsall is an artist and educator based in Michigan. Her art practice is attentive to how deviation from material conventions can subvert or metamorphose the role of institutions, where her philosophical and political concerns manifest through material explorations of the built environment. Her pieces seek to create illusory and unusual architectural conditions as a form of resistance, interrupting real-world functionality to allow for alternative systems of order. She is an Assistant Professor of Foundations & Sculpture at Michigan State University.

Admission: Free

Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 am-5 pm

A weeknight or daytime permit is now required after 5:00 pm on weekdays. No permit is required from 5:00 pm Friday through 7:30 am Monday. A $1.00 one-night pass is available in selected lots. More information can be found HERE.

For more information, please contact: Annette Lawrence, annettel@unc.edu