The art landscape is divided: painters speak only with painters, and dancers rehearse in isolation. Angela Santana and Samuel Schler reflect on their latest collaboration, Impossibilities (Meet Me In Utopia), an interdisciplinary group exhibition that converged visual and performance art. All images by Nikita Gorlov.
The future of art lies in the collapse of disciplinary boundaries: a refusal to inhabit the monotonous echo chambers that stifle the imagination. To foster the world outside the algorithm, we must find new ways of creating and coming together, actively engaging with audiences that demand more than just passive observation. Impossibilities (Meet Me In Utopia) aimed to break these boundaries to create anew. Hosted by Minimal Gallery – both an exhibition space and a tattoo shop – in Bushwick, New York, and curated by Samuel Schler, the show incorporated the work of nineteen artists across photography, painting, sculpture, textile, and objects, alongside a contemporary dance piece performed by seven contemporary dancers on opening night.
“There is such richness in curating with an absolute focus on the thematic and the narrative, striving to remove usual curating filters, like artists’ statuses and mediums,” Schler explains. “This show featured some established artists represented by world-leading galleries, alongside artists who had never shown their work before. There is so much value to creating collaboration spaces where a painter can be with a sculptor or a photographer with a textile artist, and all visual artists in dialogue with performing artists. At the heart of this approach are community-building moments that endure and reinforce the creative fabric of our cities.”
In New York, a city defined by its cacophony of creative voices, the exhibition proved that when these forces collide, they dismantle the silos that traditionally separate disciplines and career stages and generate the visceral friction we all crave. “I think it’s really important to bring established artists to neighbourhoods where creatives live and often work,” says Schler. “With this show, my intention was to break down barriers to entry and create a multi-disciplinary space where career stages and mediums come second, and storytelling comes first.” The focus of Impossibilities was to create a space and experience that allowed audiences to have their thoughts on what is within the realm of possibility challenged.
For too long, the art landscape has been divided into gated communities: painters speak only with painters, and dancers rehearse in isolation. The antidote presented in Impossibilities was a deliberate, celebratory collapse of boundaries. At the heart of this disruption was a rare dialogue between the visual arts and contemporary dance, centred around one of Angela Santana’s paintings, Aporia. “Santana developed a visual language around the subversion of art-historical motifs. Her art provided the anchor for a living, breathing interpretation of the reclined figure, which we turned into choreography,” Schler explains.
By integrating a performance directly into the exhibition, the traditionally static viewing experience was enlivened. A dance piece co-choreographed by Nicholas Lamaina and Ekko Greenbaum moved and engaged with audiences through the space, bringing the theme of the exhibition to an experiential level. In a condensed moment of artistic alchemy, the reimagined reclined figure migrated from the canvas into contemporary choreography. Santana explains: “Watching a moving body respond to the static weight of the oil paint allowed the pose to travel from stillness into motion, turning the painting into a catalyst for a continuous, kinetic act. The body has always been at the centre of my artistic practice. Previously, at my solo show at Saatchi Yates in London, Patricia Zhou of Staatsballett Berlin also translated my work into movement. It’s a real cross-pollination, and it’s something I take back to the studio as we continue to inspire each other across mediums.”
Adding to the world-building of the show, British set designer Oli Colman created two site specific translucid sculptures. The set became a part of the exhibition itself. Here again, the selection of the set designer was intentional; with a background in concert design, Colman – who most recently worked on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl set – brought a unique sensibility to designing for an art space through new lenses.
Resilience here was as much about crossing timelines as it was about crossing mediums. Impossibilities bridged the gap between artists at vastly different stages of their careers, positioning emerging talent alongside established figures like Santana. Within a market fixated on The Next Big Thing, this exhibition formed a mutually sustaining ecosystem.
The some two-hundred guests who packed the opening remained long after the performance ended, drawn to an atmosphere that felt unusually rich in an era of digital fatigue. Impossibilities ultimately argues that, by blurring the boundaries between disciplines, we don’t merely produce stronger exhibitions, but build ecosystems that can endure. In this fertile ground, the friction becomes the heartbeat of a new cultural vanguard. True innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it happens in the collision, proving that when we merge our worlds, we ignite new possibilities.
