A Note from Nikhil and Jon
It’s 5x5’s birthday! Last year, we set out to explore the unusual connections that live beyond disciplinary boundaries. While we’ve been pretty quiet over the past few months over email, the 5×5 community has been active and growing. As you’ll see in the highlights below, we’re creating across all kinds of domains - food, music, creative technology, fine art, animation, design - and the vibes are strongest in the spaces in between. And! We’ve got a new logo.
We’re just getting started. Expect to hear more from us; we’ll be sending out highlights, events, and deeper dives into creative projects, products, and processes from across the community.
Come Hang This Thursday, May 7 (🔐)
The other day at lunch we had a thought: have you ever seen a photo as a password? We had not. This sent us down a rabbit hole of imagining fun ways to design unusual password experiences. So… if you want to see how the photo-as-password works, and/or if you want to hang with us on Thursday, do the following to unlock the event details:
1) Copy this image
2) Go to the 5×5 events page and paste it to unlock the details
Highlights from across the 5×5 Community
5x5 Collective launched with a month-long gallery show centered around the theme: Ancient://Technology
Brooklyn Granary and Mill is so loved! Check out features in Eater, NYT (multiple times), and the Infatuation
Jeff Donna hosted the Heat Exchange vol 1, with Asian hot sauce flavors from up-and-coming brands
Fonty’s Deli was featured in a NYT Cooking video and got a shoutout from NYT’s Where to Eat
Lindsey Lerner, founder of Field Notes from the Work, gave a TED Talk: Why Doesn’t Success Feel Like Enough?
Kirsten Batten-Leach was selected for the 25-26 A.I.R Gallery fellowship
Matt Bentley curated his first multi-media show, Granted IRL
Robbie Shillstone held a gallery show in NYC as part of his groundbreaking approach to producing his upcoming film, Publique
Looking Ahead
Will Elliott, who designed the new 5×5 logo, will be presenting his work on multi-species collaboration alongside many talented artists and creative technologists at New Inc.
Dates: June 3-5, 2026
Location: New Museum, 235 Bowery St, New York, NY
Onye Ahanotu, founder of Ikenga Wines, will be hosting a series of tastings of his bio-designed palm wines in early June. Stay tuned for more info!
Date: June 6, 2026 (subject to change)
More Info: Suya & Sips
Brooklyn Granary and Mill, Natascha Pickowicz, and Graison Gill are hosting Vol 3 of their Old Grains of New York workshop where participants will work with freshly stone milled Northeast/Atlantic grains.
Date: July 25-26, 2026
Location: Brooklyn Granary and Mill, 240 Huntington St, Brooklyn
Metal Made Vol 4 at Black Brick Project opened on April 30 and runs until May 23. See works from 5×5 co-founder Nikhil Kumar, curator/metal sculptor Diego Anaya, and more.
Dates: April 30 - May 23, 2026
Location: Black Brick Project, 15 N Oxford St, Brooklyn
Where should we visit in NYC? Send Nikhil and Jon your recommendations for inspiration-maxxing around NYC, and if we go, we’ll share it out next time (unless you want the secret to die with us, which we totally get.)
A long-form essay for the road: Before Internet Forums, Twitter, Discord, and “third spaces” — there were penny coffeehouses where merchants, scientists, and con men mixed freely. Read about the lost world of the 17th and 18th Century London Coffeehouse.
Till next time,
Nikhil & Jon