Pink walls, unicorns and the catch in every utopia

The Best of All Possible Worlds, curated by Gallatin professor Keith Miller, runs through October 17 in the Gallatin Galleries. Twelve artists answer the same question through film, sculpture and painting: what would your perfect world look like? The walls are pink, the seats are plush, and the Washington Square News review notes that every utopia in the room arrives with its own catch.

The first piece, Rocío Delaloye’s three-minute video game Indoor_Horizon, imagines a world that sells oxygen and sunlight by the bottle and the pod, and keeps the population in pill-shaped capsules. Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer’s work includes an oil painting on wooden shutters and a brass sculpture in an eighteenth-century walnut box.

The show opens NYU’s Arts & Impact initiative for its second year, a programme that links the arts to health and well-being through 2026–27. September also brought a conference with musician Jon Batiste during UN General Assembly Healing Arts Week and a storytelling workshop marking the 25th anniversary of September 11. Vice provost Elise Cappella says the programme shows NYU’s ability to collaborate across boundaries.