Museums

Shubigi Rao has been described as an artist, bookmaker, publisher, editor, documentarian, collector, archivist, interviewer, bibliographer, and even a world-maker.1 Since 2014, she has undertaken research, documentation, and production of the ongoing project, Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book. On the surface, the project traces different histories of book banning and the destruction of knowledge in conflict zones throughout the world. However, this description is deceptive, a too-easy reading of the fate of contested, censored, or controversial books in an era of over-politicization, fear-mongering, war, and genocide. Rather, Rao’s work probes the vitality of knowledge bound between two covers and focuses instead on the ways in which knowledge is preserved through what we might call actionable hope.

A partnership with faculty in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Richmond, this exhibition explores the 2026-27 Humanities Center question, “how do worlds feel?” by considering the somatic experiences of being part of a larger community, in connection with the natural world, and an autonomous self. Drawn from the University of Richmond Museums collections, the artworks on view reflect on the embodiment of human life. 

IN/BETWEEN: WITHIN/OUTSIDE brings together artists who examine how identity is shaped through encounters with censorship. Curated by Karine Nguyen, ’26, Malena Lo Prete, ’26, and Paige Pryor, ’26, as part of the course ARTH 324: Panic! at the Museum: Art and Censorship, the exhibition explores how restrictions on what can be seen or said create space for resistance, revision, and self-definition.

The Lora Robins Gallery reopened in the Fall of 2025, and features a new design and a refined focus. Originally founded in 1977, the Gallery holds over 100,000 pieces ranging from Jurassic dinosaur fossils to rare gems, minerals, prehistoric shells, coral, fluorescent rocks and coins. The new installation will draw on the strengths of the permanent collection to showcase hundreds of minerals, rocks, fossils, and coins.