A massive new experimental art-and-tech studio is opening in Tribeca in January

A big dose of digital magic is on its way to Tribeca. Onassis ONX—the Onassis Foundation’s lab serving artists working in XR, AI and immersive performance—is packing up its midtown digs and heading downtown, where it will double in size with a 6,000-square-foot studio at Broadway and Walker Street. The new space will open to the public in January, marking a big move for an organization that’s fast become a power player in the city’s experimental art scene.

If you’ve spent the last few years wondering where the city’s most future-forward creators have been building their worlds, the answer has typically been ONX. Since its launch in 2020, the program and its more than 80 members have collaborated with Lincoln Center, Pioneer Works, NEW INC, the MIT Open Documentary Lab and a who’s-who of festivals, including Sundance, SXSW and the Venice Biennale. 

While the artists have been making boundary-blurring work everywhere, their studio has always been a snug space in midtown—until now. The Tribeca site is built for scale, featuring a motion-capture stage double the size of the old one, a three-wall seamless projection room intended for museum-grade installations and an expanded sound studio. The fourth-floor perch, which now neighbors with galleries like PPOW and Matthew Brown, also includes a beefed-up server infrastructure, natch.

The first show to christen the new studio will be TECHNE: Homecoming, set to run January 8–18, 2026. The exhibit will bring together six artists to explore identity and kinship, including Björk collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang and VR pioneer Tamiko Thiel. Visitors can expect video environments and “phygital” installations—a mash-up of real, tangible objects with interactive tech.

“Our move downtown represents both continuity and transformation,” said Afroditi Panagiotakou, the artistic director at the Onassis Foundation, in an official statement. “With this new, larger studio in Tribeca, we reaffirm our commitment to artists—offering them the tools, space and community to create work that expands what art can be in the digital age.”