coLab Challenges Identity

New Brunswick-based Collaborative Arts' exhibition Identifiable is dedicated to the question of "Who am I?" — but there are no easy answers.

Identifiable, which opened last Thursday, is the second exhibition in coLAB's recently acquired Bayard Street gallery. Located a few floors above the smoky Kairo Kafe, the exhibition fills two small rooms but tackles expansive questions about the nature of self-definition. The show centers on the photographic work of two Mason Gross School of the Arts students, drawing ties between the lives of students and local art.

The first room of the gallery is lined with photographs by Mason Gross senior Nakeya Brown. Her photo series, titled No Entry, captures her relationship to her surroundings — specifically the city of Newark. Although not from Newark, Brown described the city's infrastructure as worthy of artistic attention. Her work, purposefully void of human figures, aims to capture the traces of activity in a city "lost in the American dream."

Brown's photographs are arranged in diptychs, or two photographs mounted side-by-side. She constructs relationships of abandonment, history and community based on composition and her feelings. "Newark's Finest," a diptych of a corner grocery store and a police station, stands out as especially haunting.

In the second room of the gallery, larger photographs by Mason Gross fourth-year student Terri Beckles require second glances from gallery-goers. Beckles, who draws inspiration from gender-confronting documentary photographer Catherine Opie, manipulates her work to suggest human presence but avoids outright portrayal of individuals. Her photographs depict domestic settings with blurred human-shapes — an intriguing and eye-catching photographic technique.

Beckles' focuses on women and gender identities, which she believes are constrained by the social categorizations used to define them. All of her pieces are left untitled; only parenthetical labels of their settings (e.g. "Dinner" and "Laundry") specify the differences between them. Particularly appealing is an entire wall dedicated to the "Dinner" series printed on transparent boxes as to suggest the dynamic relationship between time and identity.

The issue of individual identity runs rampant in coLAB's space, as viewers provide personal interpretations of the exhibition and discuss New Brunswick's art scene. Identifiable, which runs until May 20, is a strong installation that leaves viewers questioning the ways in which they define themselves and anticipating coLab's future plans. It's diverse, engaging, and intelligent — a must-see for local art fans.