In The Shape of, a Saudi Arabian woman grasps to answer an anonymous lipsticked American’s sterile survey questions in no-space, interrupted by a micro-odyssey of what reveals itself to be a precious marble object. The questions are as obtuse and sterilized as most data collection tools, and inter-cut not only with replies but also with stop-motion animated vignettes in the primitive language of sand sculpture as well as the futile antics of an androgynous body made of quilted muslin attempting to escape the trappings of its floppy coil, or maybe what Hannah Arendt describes as the imprisonment of Earth. These worlds converse adjacently but loosely enough to allow space for thoughts on power, money, disparity, shape and gender. Perhaps extra-terrestrially, in the black void or, conversely, in the sandy, stony origins of humanity, there is release from these bodily, cultural and economic prisons. The work does not contain solutions, and indeed the protagonist's answers delivered in Arabic are not subtitled, so, ostensibly the interviewer is left nonplussed. This state is representative of outcomes generated through systematized information gathering, but the joke is on her. During the final minutes, you are likely biting your nails and thinking about death.
Conant prompted Yasmeen Sudairy to improvise in Arabic about color in the role of a news anchor. Sudairy filmed herself in a hotel where she happened to be staying in Paris at the time. She then sent Conant the video file to edit and incorporate into the piece. Conant also filmed her father in mock-weatherman and intimate interview contexts. Inspired by the work of Marjorie Keller, Conant interviewed her niece in candid conversation about color and coupled the footage with video of her niece performing impromptu response to Conant calling out the names of colors.
Sudairy gives Conant a driving lesson in Arabic. The “instructor” is from Saudi Arabia where women are not allowed to drive. The “student” is from the US where driving is very accessible, yet she got a license late in life and is not much of a driver. Her license has lapsed and she now must go through the instructional process from the beginning. Echoing the absurdities surrounding their respective situations, the video features a fake car made of paper with an oil-on-canvas steering wheel, spliced with footage of a lesson shot in a real car.