I chose clinamen by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at the Park Avenue Armory as the place for two families to meet for the first time. I went with my husband, my son and his girlfriend, and her family. I have always believed that art gives us something to experience together before we necessarily know what to say to one another.

Inside the vast Drill Hall were pools of water, and floating across them were simple white porcelain bowls. They looked like bowls you could buy at IKEA, or almost anywhere. The water carried them slowly through the space, toward one another and away again, until they collided and produced sound. Nothing about the individual elements was precious. Water. Porcelain. Movement. Chance. And together, they became something completely unexpected.

The title referred to the random movement of atoms, and the installation operated through a similarly simple system of movement and chance. The water moved the bowls, the bowls encountered one another, and sound was created. We walked around the pools, sat, listened, watched, and stayed as long as we wanted.

I think that is part of what makes art so magical: here everyday materials and simple science created an immersive experience that changed the way we pay attention. Things we might otherwise overlook, or decide are not important, became worthy of our attention.

We stayed as long as we needed to. There was no single thing to see and no moment when the experience was finished. As the bowls continued to drift, occasionally finding one another and making a sound, then separating and moving on, we watched and listened together, six people whose lives had brought us into the same room for the first time, surrounded by everyday things that reminded us that in the simple elegance of the seemingly ordinary, an extraordinary life can be made.