A television sits behind a glass panel in the Anthropology and Art Practice Building lobby — it’s easy to walk past the case without paying much attention to it. Standing face-to-face with its screen is less simple. One must angle themselves perpendicular to the walkway as passersby flurry between the viewer and the display. It is all at once overwhelming, isolating and intimate.

These feelings seem to reflect the wide range of sentiments in “VIDRINE: Fragments of Identity.” Despite its unassuming nature, the viewer, fortunate enough to bear witness to this installation, is surprised by an enthralling display of vulnerability within the confines of a meager campus building. In partnership with Worth Ryder Art Gallery and the Trans Student Wellness Initiative, the exhibition is a compilation of six works from an open call for transgender and gender nonconforming student artists. Each work explores themes relating to cultural and personal identity, compiled onto a single channel video installation just outside of Worth Ryder Art Gallery. 

Using the television as a medium, “Fragments of Identity”encourages a heightened sense of observation. Rather than a typical art exhibition in which one can meander around the room, the temporality of this exhibition makes it so the viewer can only take in one artist’s narrative at a time. One cannot simply steal a glance at the screen and know the full extent of an artist’s story. The impact of this installation is in the viewer’s ability to appreciate its narratives from start to finish.

Each of the videos in “Fragments of Identity”is captivating yet seemingly incongruous with the other. The works range widely — from the short-film “MEAT” by Shane Duran about a cannibal eating his Grindr date, to the esoteric compilation of clips from Maria Silk’s “The Prehistory of Transsexuality (Stone Fruits on Ocean Beach)” which parallels medical transition with horticultural and corporate practices. 

Nonlinear storytelling is a recurring manifestation of the nuanced personal identities explored in this exhibition. Titi Nguyen’s piece “SAI()GON(E) GIRL” is characterized by soft-spoken, poetic narration and jarring transitions. It uses a combination of archival footage and reenactments of the play “Miss Saigon,” pairing repetition with abrupt pauses to explore the history of Vietnam through, not a chronological, but a personal and intimate history. 

Bonwoo Kuh’s “I-5 N” also exemplifies the exploration of selfhood by layering different pieces of their identity. Kuh utilizes a “found-footage” style video which incorporates home videos sent from their father, overlaid by a conversation with their mother and sister on a road trip. When taken out of context, the recording is an ambiguous conversation about whether or not people are capable of change. To Kuh, however, the conversation was part of a larger discussion about gender and their family’s perception of their identity. Kuh told The Daily Californian that they tried to “embody multiple layers” through this work, a concept that is both visually and textually present in all of these works. 

With this installation’s wide array of stories, it is difficult at first to identify a thematic connection. However, the disunity in depicting personal stories through collages of media simultaneously creates a feeling of unified fragmentation — fitting for the title of this exhibition. For example, Lark Chang-Ye’s “More Soup” is a playful example of material fragmentation with its use of stop-motion and soup can cutouts. Meanwhile, the collage of photos and echoes of overlapping voices in Giancarlos Campos’ “panteon pirateado” overlaps the history of El Salvedor with images of gay pride. These stories that are so unique to one’s lived experiences are masterfully woven together in a tapestry of representation.

The concoction of sentiments and videography styles in “Fragments of Identity”pieces together a diverse representation of the trans and nonbinary experience. As the curator, student Maddy Surh reflected on their own gender identity while creating this exhibition. Surh told the Daily Cal that their main goal with this installation was to build community, celebrating the works of trans and gender non-conforming artists on campus.

“VIDRINE: Fragments of Identity”is on display in the Anthropology and Art Practice Building until Nov. 27.