Open Call for Inaugural, All-School Exhibition in the Met Warehouse

 Call for Projects: Occupancy [2026-27] an all-School Exhibition in the Metropolitan Warehouse 

The Commons Committee invites project proposals for Occupancy, an all-school exhibition on the occasion of SA+P’s move to its new home in the newly-adapted Metropolitan Storage Warehouse, scheduled to open sometime between September 2026 and January 2027. The first exhibition in Metropolitan Warehouse, Occupancy will celebrate the School at this critical juncture and offer initial reflections on coming together in a new space. 

The exhibition’s premise is loosely Inspired by the landmark 1976 exhibition Rooms at PS1 in Long Island City Queens, which invited creative practitioners to create site-specific interventions in a 19th century brick schoolhouse inaugurating a new chapter in the building’s history, as a former public school was becoming a vanguard art center. Departing from the installation-art unit of the “room,” MIT’s Occupancy theme can be considered wide-open and underdetermined (one 1843 usage meant “busy”). What does it mean to move in, to become neighborly, to take up space, to reside, or to be preoccupied? How is “occupancy” declared and maintained? What positions does it defend? 

Occupancy will unfold as a group exhibition across the many public presentation spaces in the Metropolitan Warehouse, and feature installations and projects that reflect the breadth of research produced at SA+P. We welcome submissions of existing work, works-in-progress, and proposals for as-yet unrealized projects across a breadth of media and scope including: models, drawings, multimedia installations, films, artworks, archival presentations, polemics, etc.! Both faculty and students are encouraged to submit. Student submissions must include letters of approval from all participants’ advising faculty member(s). You will also be asked to provide: 

• space and media requirements of the proposed work
• a budget (if production funds will be needed)
• potential or confirmed sources of support for the work
• date of availability of the proposed work 

For existing work, please include documentation (images and/or reviews), dimensions/duration, and any installation requirements. 

For new project proposals and works-in-progress, please note that priority will be given to proposals that consider various aspects of the Metropolitan Warehouse site history, themes of adaptation/adaptive reuse and sustainability, architecture, art, media, and urbanism pedagogy, and the organization of social spaces. 

Submissions have a deadline of January 15, 2026, and will be reviewed by the exhibitions advisory group of the Metropolitan Warehouse Commons Committee and exhibition co-curators, Caroline A. Jones and Selby Nimrod. Click here for a submission portal.