Common Things

05/19/2026

The books in the room are in conversation.

Alongside Rhea Karam's artist books, made from concrete, paper, and the weight of 1982, Common Things is also holding a selection of publications from Wendy's Subway that speak the same language.

Nowhere Near by Miko Revereza moves through Los Angeles, the Philippines, and Mexico City, excavating the silences that shape personal and historical memory in exile.

Abu Jildeh and Al-Armeet recovers an anti-colonial insurgency in Palestine through text, drawing, and archival documents, history as counter-record, wrested back into print. English language translation by Jumana Kayyali and May Jayyusi.

A Grammar Built with Rocks brings together feminist-decolonial artists tracing the relationship between bodies and land, asking how creative practice becomes a form of place-making when place has been taken. Edited by .halajian and

Each of these books insists on the same thing Rhea's work does: that form is not incidental. That the way a story is held, in concrete, in collage, in archival document, in mistranslation, is part of the story itself.

Books as Objects, Books as Memory
Through May 20 · 76 E 7th St, East Village
Panel discussion on May 20th, 6 to 8pm, free & open to all.

05/18/2026

Books as Objects, Books as Memory is closing with a conversation.

Join us Tuesday, May 20th (6–8pm) at Common Things, East Village, as Rhea Karam and Hannah Yukiko Pierce of Small Editions discuss memory, material, and what it means to hold a story in your hands.
Concrete. Paper. Weight. Form.

📍 76 E 7th St, New York NY
🗓️ May 20, 6–8pm
Free & open to all

05/07/2026

Join us at Common Things for “Books as Objects, Books as Memory”—proudly part of the official NYCxDESIGN Festival programming from May 14-20!

This exhibition reclaims the artist book as an active instrument of memory. Centered on two works by Rhea Karam , published by Small Editions , the display explores the weight of history and the power of design as a witness to rupture.

Join us for a reception and talk with Rhea Karam and Hannah Pierce from Small Editions in store on May 20th 6pm-8pm

DesignAsWitness

04/27/2026

Rubber Bands and a Shoebox.

Paul Labonté, , has been photographing the things people keep and the things they carry for over twenty years. He trained in darkrooms. He made books before he made anything else. His photographs carry the weight of someone who knows that looking is a practice, not a reflex.
The image on this puzzle is a Nike Air box, opened, full of rubber-banded bills, held in two hands. It is not a subtle photograph. It is also not what it looks like at first. Sit with it long enough and it becomes something quieter such as an object about aspiration, about saving, about the particular meaning a shoebox holds when you grew up treating it like a safe.

500 pieces. 17 by 25 inches. In the shop & online now.

12/03/2025

Luminesce: Holding Light
A Holiday Pop Up with Larry Ossei-Mensah

This December 10 from 5pm to 8pm, we welcome Larry Ossei- Mensah back to Common Things for his third ceramic presentation this year. It feels like a return we look forward to, a gathering around light, clay, and the quiet attention that shapes his work.

Luminesce: Holding Light brings together new pieces from Larry’s ongoing series, each one guided by the simple question of how light can be held, reflected, and felt. These works deepen his exploration of form and texture and the closeness of everyday objects. A vessel catching the slow glow of afternoon. A surface remembering the touch of a hand. A warmth that lingers.

Arriving in time for the gifting season, these pieces offer more than a seasonal moment. They invite stillness in a month that moves quickly. They create a place to gather, to linger, and to rediscover beauty in what is subtle, familiar, and made with care.

We hope you will join us in celebrating Larry’s work and the quiet brightness it brings into the room and perhaps into the hands of someone you love.

11/30/2025

Floriography II with Samhita Kamisetty
Workshop #4

We return to the table with Samhita, .hit.a for our fourth session in the floral dyeing series. It will be a morning working with flowers, spices, seeds, and other materials gathered from the rhythms of nature.

Participants will learn the process step by step and leave with a piece of fabric they have dyed themselves, shaped by their own gestures and the alchemy of petals and powders.

It is a chance to slow down, to listen to the intelligence of plants, and to witness how nature carries its own vocabulary of color.

Saturday, December 6th, 2025
11am-1:30pm at Common Things
See link in bio for tickets to secure your seat at the table. All materials included.

11/28/2025

Paula Longendyke at Common Things
Reception on December 5, 2025 from 5pm-8pm

After years of working privately in ephemeral mediums, artist
Paula Longendyke, , has embraced the permanent and the stable. Her recent practice centers on rocks, not gemstones or objects granted higher powers, but pedestrian ones, gathered and embraced. Each work embodies the act of listening, mapping and responding to a secret vocabulary of ordinary rocks.

We are honored to host Paula and this quiet, grounded body of work. Her rocks will be available by weight, inviting a way of choosing that is guided by touch, gravity, and the simple act of holding something real.

Join us on December 5th as we gather in the store to meet the artist, spend time with the work, and celebrate a practice rooted in presence and attention.

11/10/2025

The next Common Things pop-up: Lara Saget.

For one day only, Saget brings a constellation of one-of-a-kind sculptural jewelry—objects to wear, hold, and keep—where form studies become intimate companions. Each piece carries the quiet authority of sculpture and the immediacy of touch.

Los Angeles–born, New York–based, Saget studied at Barnard and earned her MFA at NYU. Her work has appeared across the U.S. and abroad, with public projects at Washington Square Park and beyond. She co-founded Studio 200 to connect exhibitions with workshops and conversations—art as a living practice.

Join us on November 14th, 2025 from 5pm - 8pm in the shop for this special presentation. Limited pieces; first come.

11/03/2025

Introducing Cultivation No. 01 —

We’re thrilled to share the program’s first completed project: a special edition Faucet Lamp (in the Common Things blue) by Blanca Codina .cb.design

Our Cultivation Program partners with designers, artists, and craftspeople to move ideas from sketch to shelf through development support, logistics, funding, and honest camaraderie. It is also a reminder that design thrives in community.

A faucet that pours light instead of water, it preserves the familiar curve and redirects the function—tap to illuminate—turning an everyday form into a small act of wonder.

Blanca’s practice spans product, furniture, and lighting. She has exhibited at Collectible and WantedDesign, earned recognition from NYCxDesign, Core77, iF, and LIT Design Awards, and co-founded Souper Studio

Available now at Common Things online and in-store.

10/16/2025

On October 23rd, from 5pm to 8pm, join us for a cozy fall evening with Yeri Coffee , a Harlem-based company bringing the bold, complex flavors of India’s coffee-growing regions into conversation with life here. Founded by and , Yeri celebrates the richness of South Indian coffee traditions while reimagining them for a global, third-culture palate.

They’ll be serving their signature Indian spiced coffee — fragrant, layered, and deeply rooted — alongside live music from flutist Eva Ding .evading , whose shape-shifting performances move between worlds, blending sound, movement, and storytelling to explore the spaces where cultures meet and belonging takes new forms.

Come sip, listen, and linger with us — a gathering for those who live in between, who find home in flavor, rhythm, and conversation.

10/04/2025