Comfort Station
2011-present
Chicago, IL
Since 2011 a great deal of my time and artistic efforts have been wrapped up in Comfort Station, a multi-disciplinary art space in Logan Square. My roles have evolved over the years from co-founding and programming the Comfort Music series, to my current role as director. Since its inception Comfort Station has been extremely grass-roots and ad hoc in terms of its identity and organization, and it is in part an ongoing experiment in how to cultivate a programming space that is porous and hyper-collaborative in nature. We’ve also tried to embrace the schizophrenia and scrappiness that inevitably comes with an eight hundred square space that acts as gallery, music venue, cinema, community meeting space, workshop, performance venue, micro-cultural center, and more. We eschew the conventional wisdom of “don’t be everything to everyone”, instead aiming to do just that.
Our central location within a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood has made it incumbent on us to be responsive and intentional not only in terms of what happens in our space but also in signaling to the broader community that we are a radically public space for all.
