The world exists in our imagination, in our experiences, memories, and anxieties. The works in Impossibly Familiar encourage the viewer to recall the past, reflect on the present, and reconsider the impossible. The eight artists in this exhibition challenge our perceptions and our desire to make sense of our reality.

Impossibly Familiar is the culmination of a year-long curatorial group project organized by FIT’s Art Market: Principles and Practices Master of Arts graduating class of 2007. This program offers the knowledge, skills, and experience needed for professional careers in the art market.

Antenna Design employs cutting-edge technology to create interactive art objects that playfully engage the viewer. Shrink Bench appears here as a proposal for a New York City public art project. It freely dispenses psychotherapy to the curious viewer.

assume vivid astro focus is a widely-exhibited artist collective that transforms spaces through the use of psychedelic colors, neon lighting, and elaborate patterns in mixed media installations. The result is nostalgic and visually explosive work with retro sensibilities which can be seen in their recent wall decal, Canival Feakamaly.

Ragna Berlin, trained in architecture and sculpture, explores the relationship between shapes and spaces. The ovoid formations in Berlin’s large paintings play with the viewer’s sense of scale and balance, while her robot, Pluttan, investigates spatial issues through interactive movement.

Cui Fei manipulates natural materials that are suggestive of Chinese cursive calligraphy. To the artist, Manuscript of Nature V’s harmonious vertical rows of grape tendrils ”...symbolize the voiceless messages in nature that are waiting to be discovered and to be heard.”

Iván Navarro’s sculptures are familiar utilitarian objects created from commercial lighting and industrial materials. They incorporate elements of modern design and explore the socio-political implications of power and double-meaning. In his Holeway series, Navarro evokes the infinite via a rabbit hole illusion.

Brandon Neubauer photographs his industrial and natural environment and then cuts and recombines them into imagined landscapes, rhythmic patterns, and geometric configurations. The resulting images engage the viewer in the psychology of seeing, associating, and remembering.

Aurora Robson’s childhood nightmares are the inspiration for her current body of work. Constructing forms from discarded plastic in The Jungle series, Robson transforms the negative into positive, playful, hanging sculptures.

Zbig Rybczynski has experimented with film as an art form since the 1970s and is a recognized music video pioneer. In the Oscar winning best animated short film, Tango (1980), Rybczynski condenses time and space by layering and repeating multiple characters’ actions.

CURATORS: Lauren Albrecht, Christina Bolya, Samuel Kho, Caren Leipsic, Anat Reches, Jie Sheng (Lesley), and Anna Zaderman.