Our Mission

Comfort Station serves Chicago artists, organizers, and neighbors by activating a publicly-owned building as a platform to connect through art and collectively shape the cultural life of their communities.

Read our 2025 Annual Report here.

Our Values

Comfort Station emerged from a belief that public spaces can be powerful sites of community connection. Housed in a historic city-owned building and shaped by artists, organizers, volunteers, and neighbors, our work is an ongoing practice of stewarding space, relationships, resources, and possibility. This work is grounded in the values of accessibility, experimentation, transparency, and shared agency. We are guided by the following principles:

We believe opportunities for cultural participation and leadership should be accessible.
Comfort Station’s programs are free for all, all the time: every art exhibition, every film screening, and every performance. We also believe that meaningful opportunities to organize, curate, and shape cultural life should not be limited to those with academic credentials, professional networks, or institutional access. Through our volunteer programmer model, we create pathways for people to develop skills, gain experience, and participate in cultural decision-making. 

We believe experimentation is essential.
Opportunities for artists and organizers to experiment are critical for both personal development and long-term participation in the sector. Learning and growth happen in spaces where ideas are tested, risks are taken, and failure is embraced. We value process alongside product and curiosity alongside expertise.

We believe transparency builds trust and shared power.
By sharing information about how decisions are made, how resources are allocated, and what challenges we face, we invite deeper community participation and accountability. Transparency is not only an organizational practice but also a tool for collective learning. We believe artists, organizers, and local residents deserve to understand the cultural institutions that shape their opportunities, and to use that knowledge to advocate for themselves and their communities.

We believe collective stewardship strengthens our work.
When artists, organizers, volunteers, and neighbors have meaningful agency in shaping an organization, they bring their unique perspectives, lived experiences, skills, relationships, and ideas to the work. We believe this shared stewardship creates a more resourceful, responsive, and resilient organization than any single vision could achieve.

At Comfort Station, these values drive our work. They are the framework through which we make decisions, build programs, and imagine what a more accessible and community-driven cultural ecosystem can be. 

We are committed to these values and to meeting the challenges they represent. Iteration, reflection, and community feedback support Comfort Station’s ongoing work toward collective stewardship.

What We Do

Within our three core programs—Exhibitions, Music, and Film—we support emerging artists and grassroots organizers by creating platforms to share work, take risks, and build connections across diverse creative communities. Free open calls for exhibitions and a year-round community proposal process invite artists, organizers, and neighbors to activate the space through public programs and gatherings including: performances, workshops, screenings, and meetings. These open pathways for participation help ensure that Comfort Station's programming is shaped by the communities it serves rather than a single curatorial voice.

Our volunteer programmer model is central to our work: expanding access to curatorial and organizational leadership by creating opportunities for individuals to develop skills, shape programming, and participate in cultural production outside of traditional academic and institutional pathways. By sharing resources, knowledge, and decision-making processes, we seek to cultivate a more transparent, equitable, and interconnected cultural ecosystem where more people can tell their stories and help define the cultural life of their neighborhoods.

History

The Logan Square Comfort Station was one of nine identical Tudor-style West Parks Public Comfort Stations constructed in 1926 and 1927. Only two are still standing, the second located along Austin Avenue in Columbus Park. 

In 2005, Logan Square Preservation began an active campaign to restore the Comfort Station. Through a partnership with the City of Chicago and 35th Ward Alderman Rey Colon, TIF funds were used to clean and restore the building to its original 1926 appearance including complete cleaning and tuckpointing of brick, a new clay tile roof, stucco, tudoring, copper gutters, and restored windows. 

When renovations were completed in 2010, informal visual arts programming inside the building began through efforts by volunteers associated with Logan Square Preservation. By 2011 these efforts had grown and brought in a wider circle of programmers and curators, expanding the programming into concerts, film screenings, workshops and more. In 2016, Comfort Station NFP was formed as a distinct 501c3 non profit, which now officially partners with Logan Square Preservation to run the programming in and around the building.

Accessibility:
Comfort Station is wheelchair accessible, with step-free entry, wide pathways, and an ADA-accessible restroom. Seating is available and can be arranged to accommodate different needs. Service animals are always welcome.

Some accessibility features such as ASL interpretation and captioning are not always available but may be provided for select events. If you have specific access needs, please contact Interim Executive Director Kitty Rauth in advance and we will do our best to accommodate.