Christina Keegan—Soothing Space
From the artist: Christina strives to create art through natural building that meets material and social needs in the moment, grounded in communal practice of imagining the futures we want to build. Christina grew up in central Illinois and moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 2007, where she completed a BA in Urban Planning at Cleveland State University and worked as a nonprofit project manager and grant writer with a focus on developing healthy, affordable housing.
Within the context of the foreclosure crisis and gentrification in Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway, Christina began to study the central role that nonprofits, policing, and local governments currently play in the continued commodification and exploitation of land and housing. In response, Christina organized mutual aid projects with neighbors to take care of each other, respond to displacement, and advance housing justice.
In 2010 she began studying natural building — the process of using local, minimally processed natural materials to create contextually appropriate structures. Through natural building, Christina has had the chance to better understand herself, what it means to create, and our cultural relationships to place. She is passionate about spreading joy, healing, and community self-reliance through collaborative design/build projects and playing in mud.
Christina bought a home in the Buckeye neighborhood at the beginning of the pandemic, and has been slowly getting to know her neighbors, growing a garden, and transitioning to practicing natural building full-time.