Craig Stevenson

Craig Stevenson is a Chicago social alchemist passionate about the mind-body-spirit connection and the transformative power of community. As a catalyst, he uses arts and culture, codesign, creative placemaking, and the weaving of multicultural and multisector relationships as tools for social change and facilitation of building thriving, sustainable communities. Craig is the Managing Director and Co-Chair of Open Architecture Collaborative Chicago, which operates within the intersections of culture, regenerative futures, and spatial design to produce equitable, responsive public interest design outcomes and positively contribute to the broader social, natural, and urban systems. Craig is part of the Under the Grid Collective, which is working on Under the Grid, 15 blocks of arts and culture under the CTA Pink Line. Widening the web of social impact, he now works with Urban Growers Collective and Green Era, whose missions are dedicated to food sovereignty and ushering in green circular economies with their built environments, environmental landscapes, and cultural programming. As a creative changemaker, he has taught in public and spiritual institutions, worked to foster alliances for policy change, and collaborated with creatives to produce spatial interventions, arts, and architectural experiences, as well as city-wide connections and belonging for biennials, civic institutions, and organizations focused on creating public space and green infrastructure.