Proteus Gowanus is an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room housed in a former 1900 box factory located centrally among several vibrant Brooklyn communities. Exhibits of art, artifacts and books organized around a yearlong theme are exhibited in The Proteus Room, our central gallery space.

In adjacent spaces, eight additional projects-in-residence have grown out of our thematic exhibitions and partnerships. These projects share with Proteus a love of books, a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, and a desire to engage the community in their multifarious investigations.

Like Proteus, the Greek sea god who could change form, Proteus Gowanus is an ever-changing organism. It is located at the edge of the Gowanus Canal, a similarly evolving post-industrial waterfront area with a thriving artistic community and a history dating to the Revolutionary War and before.