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Animation by Brian Haimes

Est. 2014 · Orchard Street

a creative community
in downtown New York

About

By artists, for the people

Since 2014, Chinatown Soup has been home to a grassroots intervention, providing artists with their first significant exposure, offering affordable studio space, and presenting public programming with strong commitments to local communities.

Drawing from the Stone Soup folk parable and the artist-run collectives of 1970s New York, we're reimagining how people can work together to live creatively in the 21st-century city.

[ ABOUT US ]
  • Welcome to Chinatown Soup — day on Orchard Street
  • Gallery room with work on the walls
  • Café interior under the orange lantern
  • Courtyard chairs at Chinatown Soup
  • House cat in the gallery with paintings on the black wall
  • Sixteen B storefront in the morning, street empty
  • Pouring tea into a gaiwan
  • Soup Studio workspace with paintings in progress
  • Residents painting together in Soup Studio
  • Yellow mural room with stairs down to the studio
  • Night crowd gathered outside Sixteen B
  • Spooky and the Bear live at Chinatown Soup
  • Spirit Soup: hands holding runes beside a candle and crystal ball
  • Beaded curtain portal into the café

Our Spaces

Places for artists & people who love them

Gallery

The Gallery at Chinatown Soup is a curated space that invites artists to participate in creative community outside of “the art world.” Intentional creators across disciplines are welcome. Soup projects contextualize artworks to make alternative narratives visible, challenging conventional methods and framing radical open-mindedness. For us, art is a verb, a dynamic process of self-discovery where intuitive decision-making, raw expression, and the embrace of imperfection guide the way.

[ ON VIEW ]

Studio

The Studio at Chinatown Soup is an underground space where resident artists work and play. Down here, we listen for whispers of the heart, learn from each other, and make art to display upstairs. Inspired by the Basement Workshop of 1970s Chinatown, an activist collective begun by young urban planners and artists that grew from scavenging discarded street furniture into multiple, longstanding cultural arts institutions, Soup's basement is a laboratory for the experimental and conscious.

[ IN THE STUDIO ]

Café

The Cafe at Chinatown Soup blends into its surroundings as an inclusive gathering space, open to resident artists and available for special events. Inspired by Carol Goodden and Gordon Matta-Clark's FOOD, a 1970s SoHo social experiment that celebrated creativity and connection (as a basis for consumption), Soup Cafe weaves meal-centered experiences into gallery projects. These pop-up initiatives recognize the role of food and drink in creating a shared sense of place and belonging.

[ PLEASE INQUIRE ]

At birth, we emerge from dream soup.
At death, we sink back into dream soup.
In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land.
Life is a portage.

— Tom Robbins
Hand pouring tea into a bowl of greens above a mirrorball, tulips and an Orchard Street sign

Acrylic on canvas by Clare Kim

Plant Life

Spirit Soup

We combine the magic of our gallery, cafe, and studio to hold an authentic home for spiritual exploration. Here, practitioners, makers, and seekers exchange knowledge, craft, and inspiration.

Steam rising over a tea set with a white gaiwan on a wooden tray Tea Bar
Apothecary
Garden
Learn more
Orange-haired doll perched on a disco ball at Chinatown Soup

Downstairs neighbor

Our studio is home to Sixteen B

A creative consultancy and design agency working out of the Soup basement: brand, print, and digital before and beyond what's trending.

Visit Sixteen B ↗

Contact

Request Information

Whether you're curious about the space, hoping to visit, or looking to show, book, or collaborate, we're here to talk.