Meditation on Art: Why Art is Felt with the Heart and Understood by the Mind

Reflection by Dora García and Us on 100 Impossible Pieces of Art

Sometimes, something or someone makes your heart leap.

Art is meant to do this to you, whether gently, subtly, or with force and excitement. It is designed to spark emotions and energise your heart, or, as I call it, your emotional centre.

I have always believed that art is best experienced with the heart rather than just the brain. The brain may analyse and calculate what it sees, but the heart feels it more intuitively and emotionally.

That said, the work of the artist Dora García changed my perspective. Her art invites both the heart and brain to work together, creating a unique experience that makes you think as much as you feel.

Dora García's art does not consist of just traditional paintings or sculptures. Instead, she crafts her pieces using written words, stories, quotes, and other creative methods. Her work creates "scripted situations": natural, abstract, surreal, philosophical ideas or scenarios within real-life contexts.

These situations can surprise, disrupt, or even take control of the moment, drawing you into something entirely unexpected, pleasant or shocking.

For example, in November 2024, while visiting my birthplace, Strasbourg, I encountered one of her most thought-provoking works, 100 Œuvres d'Art Impossibles (100 Impossible Pieces of Art), at the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain.

This piece was not a painting on a wall; it was a list. On a gallery wall, García had written 100 ideas for artworks that could never be realised.

These "impossible pieces" could never exist in the real world, yet reading about them made you imagine what they might look or feel like in reality.

At first glance, the simplicity of the list struck me, but its meaning deepened the longer I stayed with it. It made me think about the impossible things in life: goals, experiences, or ideas we can only dream of but never achieve.

It was a striking reminder of how art can invite us to reflect on our lives and our limitations, in surprising, entertaining, and sometimes even unsettling ways.

What I loved most was how García's work played with both emotion and intellect.

First, the words on the wall caught my attention and made me feel something: joy, curiosity, shock (sometimes horror) and even wonder. Then, as I considered their meaning, I felt challenged to interpret the ideas, like solving a puzzle. This combination of feeling and thinking is what makes this piece so singular.

I wanted to share this with you because her work offers a rich way to meditate and reflect on our lives and the things we may miss. It reminds us that even impossible ideas have value; they give us a glimpse into something we can only imagine.

That, perhaps, is what art does best.

How to meditate with this piece

Treat each sentence and idea as the subject of a meditation, a reflection on memory, or something you have always thought about. Here is how I am practising with this piece of art:

Read the piece through quickly first, to take in its overall concept.
Stop and focus on the sentences that surprised you or prompted the strongest reaction.
Allow some of these to become the centre of your reflection. Let your emotions move through without self-judgement. This may take a few moments.
Set aside any sentences that made you feel uncomfortable.
Later, revisit those sentences. If they still feel uncomfortable, set them aside again.
Do not dwell too much on the why and how of each sentence. Embrace the idea and let it settle. Then wait for your own response.
Come to this with a willingness to be moved. You may feel playful, melancholy, tender, or simply present.

The Piece

100 Œuvres d'Art Impossibles — 100 Impossible Pieces of Art by Dora García

Please note I have kept the text below in French, based on the original piece, and translated it myself from French into English. The translation may not reflect the exact words the artist might have chosen, but I have done my best to convey the meaning and essence of each sentence.

The artist deliberately left two sentences out of the list. I leave you to guess which ones:

1 – vivre la vie de quelqu'un d'autre. / Live someone else's life.
2 – faire les rêves de quelqu'un d'autre / Dream someone else's dreams.
3 – ne pas mourir / Not die.
4 – être, au moins l'espace d'une seconde, auprès de tous les êtres humains sans exception / Be, at least for a second, with all human beings without exception.
5 – noter tous leurs noms / Note down all their names.
6 – être dans plusieurs lieux à la fois / Be in several places at once.
7 – choisir ses rêves à l'avance / Choose your dreams in advance.
8 – raconter toutes les histoires du monde / Tell all the stories in the world.
9 – diriger entièrement une autre personne / Fully control another person.
10 – ressusciter au moins partiellement / Partially resurrect.
11 – mourir plusieurs fois / Die several times.
12 – vivre plusieurs vies / Live several lives.
13 – connaître tous les points de fuite, avec leurs points de départ et d'arrivée / Know all vanishing points, with their starting and ending points.
14 – occuper physiquement l'espace de quelqu'un d'autre / Physically occupy someone else's space.
15 – partager des hallucinations / Share our hallucinations with others.
16 – revivre son enfance / Relive your childhood.
19 – trouver son double / Find your double. [CHECK — "and live with them" appears in the original translation but is not in the French]
20 – voyager dans le temps / Time travel.
21 – revenir en arrière et essayer de rajeunir ainsi / Go back in time and try to grow younger.
22 – entendre uniquement les sons émis par son propre corps / Hear only the sounds emitted by your own body.
23 – être seul(e), mais vraiment seul(e) au monde / Be truly alone in the world.
24 – intervertir les sexes / Reverse the sexes.
25 – rejouer indéfiniment la même scène devant un public qui vieillit et finit par mourir / Re-enact the same scene indefinitely before an ageing audience that eventually dies.
26 – limiter le nombre des questions et des réponses / Limit the number of questions and answers.
27 – voler dans les airs ou se déplacer à grande vitesse / Fly through the air or move at great speed.
28 – savoir la vérité / Know the truth.
29 – vivre sous terre définitivement / Live underground permanently.
30 – savoir exactement combien de fois quelqu'un a pleuré / Know exactly how many times someone has cried.
31 – terminer l'œuvre inachevée de quelqu'un / Finish someone's unfinished work.
32 – simuler toutes les émotions / Simulate all emotions. [CHECK — original translation read "Hiding all emotions" which appears to be a mistranslation of "simuler"]
33 – tout oublier / Forget everything.
34 – tout se rappeler / Remember everything.
35 – conférer la vie à l'inanimé / Give life to the inanimate.
36 – accélérer le temps à volonté / Speed time at will.
37 – prédire l'avenir / Predict the future.
38 – lire les pensées / Read thoughts.
39 – effacer certains événements passés / Erase certain past events.
40 – empêcher certains événements futurs / Prevent certain future events.
41 – multiplier la lumière du soleil / Multiply the light of the sun.
42 – faire des réserves de souffle / Store reserves of breath and respiration.
43 – être aimé(e) de tout le monde / Be loved by everyone.
45 – combler un abîme / Fill a void.
46 – remplacer tous les livres par leur reflet dans la glace / Replace all books with their reflections in the mirror.
47 – assister à la fin du monde / Witness the end of the world.
48 – sauter un jour / Skip a day.
49 – mettre le même texte dans tous les livres / Write the same exact text in all books.
50 – changer le nom d'une grande ville / Rename a significant city.
51 – changer les noms de tous ses habitants / Rename all its inhabitants.
52 – transpirer de l'or / Sweat gold.
53 – créer des automates capables de penser / Create robots capable of thinking.
54 – tout voir / See everything.
55 – assister au commencement du monde / Witness the beginning of the world.
56 – toucher le temps / Touch time.
57 – user un corps humain par le toucher / Wear out a human body by touching it constantly.
58 – voir simultanément plusieurs événements consécutifs / Simultaneously see several consecutive events.
59 – voir son propre visage / Look at your own face.
60 – être seul(e) à voir au royaume des aveugles / Be the only one to see in the kingdom of the blind.
61 – évoluer dans une autre dimension / Move to another dimension.
62 – arrêter de dormir / Stop sleeping.
63 – dormir sans arrêt / Sleep endlessly.
64 – vivre avec un fantôme / Live with a ghost.
65 – ressentir la douleur de quelqu'un d'autre / Feel someone else's pain.
66 – dominer totalement ses émotions / Completely control your emotions.
67 – voir l'âme humaine / See the human soul.
68 – synchroniser toutes les respirations / Synchronise all breathing.
69 – annuler une décision irréversible / Undo an irreversible decision.
70 – faire comme si la mort n'existait pas / Act as if death does not exist.
71 – être identique à quelqu'un d'autre / Be identical to someone else.
72 – écouter toutes les conversations / Listen to all conversations.
73 – être derrière et devant la porte / Be behind and in front of the door.
74 – réprimer les battements de paupières / Suppress the blinking of your eyes.
75 – éliminer les souvenirs à volonté / Erase memories at will.
76 – ne plus bouger / Stay completely still.
77 – enrayer le vieillissement / Halt ageing.
78 – devenir transparent(e) / Become transparent. [CHECK — original translation read "Become invisible" but "transparent" and "invisible" are not the same]
79 – bâtir un espace infini / Build an infinite space.
80 – remplacer le jour par la nuit / Replace day with night.
81 – inverser les hiérarchies / Reverse the hierarchies.
82 – changer le sens des mots / Change the meaning of words.
83 – traverser les murs / Walk through walls.
84 – se réincarner plusieurs fois très vite / Reincarnate multiple times quickly.
85 – se rappeler les positions adoptées par le corps pendant le sommeil / Recall body positions adopted during sleep.
86 – créer des barrières invisibles mais infranchissables / Create invisible but impassable barriers.
87 – repousser les limites du corps humain / Push back the limits of the human body. [CHECK — original translation read "Changing the limits of the human body"]
88 – moduler la fidélité des miroirs / Adjust the fidelity and reflection of mirrors.
89 – recommencer sa vie à zéro / Start your life over from zero.
90 – vivre de l'autre côté / Live on the other side.
91 – alterner à volonté entre folie et raison / Alternate freely between madness and reason.
92 – changer de sexe et d'âge à volonté / Change gender and age at will.
93 – regarder à travers les yeux de quelqu'un / See the world through someone else's eyes.
94 – vivre sous hypnose / Live under hypnosis.
95 – composer la bande-son de la vie de quelqu'un / Compose the soundtrack of someone's life.
96 – persuader une personne qu'elle est morte en réalité / Convince someone they are dead in reality.
97 – refaire les rêves de la veille / Redream the dreams of the previous night.
98 – faire une chute sans fin / Experience a never-ending fall.
99 – photographier chaque instant de sa vie / Photograph every instant of your life.
100 – rien / Nothing.

If you would like to explore meditation and breathwork in a more structured setting, Laurent teaches weekly online classes in breathwork, somatic yoga, and pranayama. View Classes and Pricing →