THE SHAPE OF
January 21st - February 14th, 2020
Pratt Institute Steuben Gallery

The Shape of is part of Angela Conant’s ongoing participatory work that employs research methods to demonstrate differences in perspective. This latest iteration is an exhibition at Pratt Institute’s Steuben Gallery with works by student and alumni participants. The exhibition also includes Conant’s video piece and drawing series of the same name.

“The Shape of” exhibition is a participatory curatorial project by Angela Conant with works by Alex Berns, Ding Xitong, Noa Fenigstein, Ambrus Gero, Evelyn Golden, Karen Hall, Kosuke Kawahara, Ramsha Khan, Joey T. McFadden, Anna Marley, Donna Nadeem, Yooyeon Nam, Toni Shi, Celeste Tsang, Emma Seely-Katz, Dakotah Weeks Murphree, Meirav Zaks Zilberman, and viewer participation.

In the weeks leading up to the exhibition, student participants responded to the prompt "Describe a two-dimensional shape that could symbolize the United States of America to you." Participants then swapped responses, and made works in relation to their peers' shape descriptions

The exhibition also includes a video work The Shape of (2017), a collaboration by Angela Conant and Yasmeen Sudairy, in which a Saudi Arabian woman grasps to answer an anonymous American’s esoteric survey questions. Their exchange is inter-cut with stop-motion vignettes depicting contemplations of power, economic disparity, bodies and death. A transcript with Arabic and English translations is available in an accompanying booklet which is sealed with instructions to “read after viewing.”

The exhibition also includes access to a survey which is available for visitors to the exhibition to fill out. The survey answers are then available for participants to make drawings in response. Drawings made by visitors will be hung and on display through the run of the exhibition.

The exhibition deals with the constructs that capitalize on social identities, intersubjectivity, and interpersonal exchange through collective drawing.