Part of what makes restrictive societal norms so insidious is that our unconscious observation of them makes them practically invisible. This often maddeningly makes the answer to questions about inequality, racism, and sexism That’s the way things always have been or That’s reality. Of course, that is only one of many realities. Society is constructed, not obeyed. Before forging a new reality, sometimes we must demonstrate the arbitrariness of our current one.

David Hammons’ Bliz-aard Ball Sale (1983) did just that. Here Hammons sold cheap goods on the New York City sidewalk like any other street entrepreneur, but his were differently sized snowballs. Our public and absurd participation in commonplace practices can open minds to the arbitrariness of this reality and the possibility of forging another. When norms are destroyed and the everyday order upended, resistance to change begins to dissolve. With care and planning, the unimaginable can become imaginable.