The gallery space at 83 Grand Street is used as a platform to present work that challenges the disciplinary boundaries between architecture, art, and design. a83’s exhibition programming prioritizes projects that fall outside of typical instruments of professional practice or academic modes of presentation and prompt conversations across multiple generations of designers. The public-facing storefront provides an opportunity for public engagement with the experimental projects prioritized by a83’s exhibition programming that might be otherwise unfeasible within the constraints of commercial or institutional contexts. Through a program of exhibitions and events curated in-house, collaboration with guest curators, and a selection of independent installations/events that align with a83’s curatorial mission, the 2024–25 season includes the following exhibitions: BSMNT, features a concise showcase of prints created in a83 printmaking workshops led by Kevin Liu, Owen Nichols, and Clara Syme; the third Architectural Drawings exhibition featuring the work of MOS, Young Projects, Bureau Spectacular, Drawing Architecture Studio, Gore/Hall, Michael Robinson Cohen, and Gus Crain; Drawing Projections presents six new works by artist Nancy Goldring, a founding member of SITE; Drawing Archives, a culmination of a multi-year, multi-generational, group project resulting in new works developed in response to the JNP&P collection held at a83; and Dien Dien, an exhibition cocurated by Brunno Douat and Gustavo Caboco in collaboration with the Waorani women from the Tepapade and Tiwino communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Gustavo Caboco is a multidisciplinary artist of the Wapishana people, engaging in visual arts, literature, and cinema. Caboco’s work encompasses diverse mediums—including drawing, painting, textiles, performance, photography, video, sound, and text—reflecting on the displacement of Indigenous bodies, (re)territorialization processes, and memory production. Caboco actively engages in anticolonial pedagogical activities within educational spaces, challenging hegemonic narratives of colonialism through performances in several American and European institutions. He conducted the seminar, “Strengthening Threads” at the British Museum. Caboco’s work has been extensively exhibited in São Paulo (Pinacoteca, Museu de Arte Moderna, Itau Cultural, SESC Pompéia, Millan), Rio de Janeiro (Museu de Arte Moderna, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil), and Curitiba (Museo Paranaense). In 2022, he was invited to the “aabaakwad” Indigenous meeting at the Sámi pavilion during the 59th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia, and was the cocurator of the Brazilian Pavilion for the 60th edition.

Brunno Douat is a designer, researcher, and curator,working at The Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Architecture and Design. Douat holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture and urban studies, and he received his master’s in environmental design from Yale School of Architecture (YSoA), where he investigated spatial strategies of endurance developed by Waorani communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. His research received funding from the Yale Tropical Resources Institute and the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Douat’s work was featured in the project Surfacing—The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia, developed by Estudio A0 and Manuela Omari Ima, and showcased at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. From 2019 to 2021, he led the Museu Paranaense architecture department, developing exhibition design projects and architecture investigations. His essay “On Curupira Steps: Lina Bo Bardi in Vila Velha” was published in the Cornell Journal of Architecture 12: After (Cornell AAP Publications, 2021).

Ana María Durán Calisto is a designer, planner, and scholar from Quito, Ecuador. She is a visiting assistant professor at Yale University School of Architecture (YSoA), a PhD candidate in the urban planning department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a cofounder of Estudio A0, an award-winning practice responsible for the design of multiscalar, community-based projects. Durán Calisto has taught seminars and design studios in several architecture schools, including Harvard University, Columbia University, and Pratt. In 2022, she received the Mark Cousins Theory Award for her work on extractivism and the principles of ancestral urban ecologies. She coedited books, contributed chapters and articles to several publications, curated exhibitions, and advised governmental and non-governmental institutions on projects developed in the Amazon region.  Estudio A0’s project, Surfacing—The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia, was showcased at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia.

Nancy Goldring is an artist living in New York. A founding member of SITE, Inc. an experimental architectural group in the seventies; she has received two Fulbright grants, one to Italy and another to Southeast Asia. Her art practice combines graphic, photographic, and projected material, presented as a non-narrative series of images that she calls “foto-projections.” Foto-projections suggest the intricate nature of human perception by reordering visual information to propose irreconcilable time frames, shifting vantage points, changing moods, and memory traces. Each image represents one of the many possible ways of evoking a place or a moment; and the series all together suggests the complex way we experience the world.

Manuela Omari Ima is a Waorani leader born at the time when tewe was in bloom, according to her mother, in a site known as Tobekaweno located in the Tagaeri-Taromenane Intangible Zone near the borders of the Yasuni National Park, in Ecuadorian Amazon. Between 2006 and 2014, Ima was the president of the Association of Waorani Women from the Ecuadorian Amazon (AMWAE). She serves as an active leader and mediator in resolving conflicts in the region due to extractive activities in the group’s traditional territory. Her efforts shed light on the communities’ rights and the environmental threats from oil, mining, and logging operations. In 2012, Ima published her work Waorani Knowledge and Yasuní National Park: Plants, Health, and Well-being in the Amazon of Ecuador, disseminating the knowledge of native neotropical medicinal plants. Alongside Romelia Papue, Ima runs the art project Omere: Texturas de la Selva.

Kevin Liu is an architect, urban designer, and printmaking educator based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of Polyline Press and developed the “Polyline to Print” printmaking workshop to introduce traditional intaglio copper plate etching techniques to architects and designers, combining digital tools and drafting techniques with analogue processes and methods. Four workshops have been held since their inception in 2021, two at Harvard University and two at a83 in New York. He received a master’s in design studies from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where he was a recipient of the Frank Knox and Irving Innovation Fellowships. He works in Sydney while also teaching at the University of Sydney, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, and was a curator on the John Andrews: Architect of Uncommon Sense with Paul Walker in 2022.

Romelia Angelica Papue Mayancha is an Indigenous Kichwa-Shuar photographer and entrepreneur. She is an administrator and cofounder of the artisanal venture Omere, texturas de la selva. Since 2004, Papue has worked with the Waorani nationality in the artisanal sector, currently managing the Ñänönani art store where unique pieces from Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar women are marketed. In 2018, alongside Waorani and mestiza companions, she became part of the collective Mujeres Mirando, a platform to communicate the struggles of Waorani women through photographic exhibitions throughout Ecuador. In 2023, Papue collaborated with Estudio A0 and Manuela Omari Ima on the project Surfacing—The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia, showcased at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. She is pursuing a bachelor's degree in social communication.

Owen Nichols is an architect based in New York where he, along with Clara Syme, codirects a83 and the design firm Chibbernoonie. Since operating a83 he has curated over ten exhibitions, organized events and educational workshops, and has led the production of fine-art print editions for architects including RUR, Jesse Le Cavalier, Common Accounts, Galo Canizares, Architensions, and Sean Canty whose work printed by a83 was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York for their permanent collection. Chibbernoonie prioritizes communication through images specializing in hybrid drawings, printmaking, and modeling. Chibbernoonie has developed a portfolio of built work—including an apiary; a cafe, wayfinding system, and garden for a special needs high school; and a single-family home renovation/addition–while maintaining a speculative image-based practice. Chibbernoonie’s work has been published in Pidgin; ARQ; Harvard Design Magazine; Inscriptions, edited by K. Michael Hays and Andrew Holder (Harvard University Press, 2022); and Dwell. Nichols received his MArch degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Design and teaches at Parsons School of Design and The Cooper Union.

Clara Syme is an architect based in New York where she, along with Owen Nichols, codirects a83 and the design firm Chibbernoonie. Since operating a83 she has curated over ten exhibitions, organized events and educational workshops, contributed to the production of fine-art print editions, and is director of archival material at a83. Chibbernoonie prioritizes communication through images specializing in hybrid drawings, printmaking, and modeling. Chibbernoonie has developed a portfolio of built work–including an apiary; a cafe, wayfinding system and garden for a special needs high school; and a single-family home renovation/addition–while maintaining a speculative image-based practice. Chibbernoonie’s work has been published in Pidgin; ARQ; Harvard Design Magazine; Inscriptions, edited by K. Michael Hays and Andrew Holder (Harvard University Press, 2022); and Dwell. Syme received her MArch degree from Princeton University and has taught at University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture, Parsons School of Design, and The Cooper Union.

a83 is a nonprofit organization with a three-part mission to exhibit, publish, and promote experimental projects in architecture, art, and design. Building from the previous operation, John Nichols Printmakers & Publishers (1978–94), the organization continues to operate at the original location, 83 Grand Street—in the SoHo neighborhood in New York City—as a printmaking studio, project-space, and growing archive. At the SoHo location exhibitions and installations are produced, workshops are hosted, and work is broadcast to new audiences.