Alt Space Chicago Turns Trash into Treasure

In the heart of Chicago’s West Side, a thriving arts hub brings life to the former Austin Bank of Chicago building, located at 5645 W. Corcoran Pl. As of 2024, the historic space — once home to Catholic Charities — has been bought by and converted into an artist-led center for community.

Jordan Campbell, co-founder and director of Alt Space Chicago — abbreviated alt_ — describes the nonprofit as a response to cultural trauma dedicated to community empowerment, service and change through art, faith and collaboration. 

Campbell partnered with close friend, co-founder and artist Jon Veal, who passed away suddenly in 2022, just three years after alt_ was founded. Together, the duo sought to use art as a tool to make the world a better place. 

Now, alt_ and its Redemptive Plastics program, in collaboration with the project’s co-founder and Chicago-based designer Cody Norman, transcend traditional paths of artistic, environmental and urban rehabilitation, promoting community activism through constructive action rather than criticism or shame. 

“We’re taking real issues and creating new opportunities but we’re also thinking about how we approach it with an artistic lens,” Campbell said.

The collaborative project, powered by alt_ alongside Norman, began in 2023 with a mission to blend creative design and sustainable action. Partnering with individuals and organizations looking to create more circular practices around plastic usage, Redemptive Plastics looks to localize global issues, starting with community involvement and education. 

With the help of local volunteers and collaborators — including Dark Matter Coffee, Half Acre Beer, the Museum of Ice Cream and the Chicago Marathon — the program converts discarded plastics into functional artwork, such as lumber, stools, bus stop seating and key chains. 

While the project was always centered around recycling, its organic growth has resulted in directional fluctuation. Stemming from Campbell and Norman’s desire to fuse storytelling and technical design, Norman compared their first year to building an airplane in midair.

“That’s where I come in, is the plastics experience in my own practice and building tools and working with them,” Norman said. “And Jon and Jordan are excellent in storytelling and making so, together, it was really strong.” 

Beneath the bank’s vaulted ceilings and impressive murals, Campbell stands amid scattered Paktech beer can carriers, benches made from recycled plastic and an array of redemptive design prototypes — remnants of the growing plastics program.

Though the project boasts over 10,000 pounds of plastic redeemed in 2024 alone, Campbell said the operation’s establishment took time following the preliminary growth and backing of alt_.

Before moving to the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, Campbell said he found personal comfort in art, receiving his first camera as a high school senior. At Savannah College of Art and Design, it challenged him to practice and pursue art professionally. Then, through alt_,  he understood art as a vehicle to uplift and inspire those around him.

“I started to see how art could become a bridge for the gaps in the Austin community, as well as the Chicago community at large because it allowed symbolism to spark conversation,” Campbell said.

While alt_ is making waves across the wider Chicagoland area, the effect is most evident in its direct neighborhood impact. 

“The narrative, we had learned, was that one in three stories in the media about Austin were negative,” Campbell said. “It was like, ‘How can we change that narrative? How can we create an alternative to that?’ And for us, it was to start with the people first and recognize that the greatest asset of any community is the people.”

In recent years, Austin has gained a reputation for high crime rates, but Campbell works to revitalize the community through individual and community empowerment. Previous projects, such as Project Stamp — a photography program featuring community members and resident portraits stamped across the neighborhood — aim to reframe the narrative and put family at the center of Austin’s story. 

Campbell said his community values stem from the strength of his network. Friends and family inspire and support his drive to bring people together. For Campbell, the intersectional work of alt_ reflects the threads of his own character, proving differences are not limitations to progress, but opportunities for connection. 

“When I enter into a space, I never take any of those things off,” Campbell said. “I’m an artist, I’m a Christian, and I’m a part of a community, all at the same time. So for us, it’s all about discovering those throughlines.”

Like any grassroots nonprofit, alt_ relies on the support of board members, volunteers and community partnerships. Campbell acknowledges these relationships as crucial to its development and sees them as opportunities to grow.

“It provides opportunities for me to learn how to lead,” Campbell said. “Within those relationships, I’m not always leading. A lot of times I find myself listening in order to receive instruction.” 

To Campbell, relationships are about building trust and inspiring — an approach that leads to deeper understanding of the people around him and the issues they face. Within the Redemptive Plastics program, Campbell found project partnership within his own community. 

Since its launch, Campbell and Norman have navigated setbacks, turning systematic issues into opportunities for redirection. For example, the duo moved from collecting any and all recyclable waste to prioritizing selective items, such as Paktech can carriers, which cuts production costs and maximizes manageability. 

Additionally, with the Trump administration freezing federal grants towards recycling projects and placing tariffs on imported recyclables, economic stability and environmentalism are threatened. 

“Recycling’s not profitable for anybody at the moment,” Norman said. “It’s so much work, but shifting from taking any plastic to having more of a focus made it better for Redemptive Plastics.”

While the industry’s instability deters national and federal funders, it reveals the importance of private and community support. Norman and Campbell acknowledge their tight network as essential to their growth.

“We create these relationships with different entities to further bring credibility to the work, but also this issue,” Campbell said.

Their selective partnership approach has resulted in the loyal support of local collaborators, particularly with Chicago’s Green Beer project — a collaborative effort across Chicago breweries to reduce waste through recycled can carriers and collection points. 

Although the program encourages customers to return plastic Paktech can carriers for reuse, a large number of the beer cans and caps are donated to the Redemptive Plastics project, keeping them out of the landfill and converting them into new products. Now, the multicolored plastics live on as vibrant park benches, cafe tables and customizable keychains.

While individual and community advocacy is vital for local impact, the backing of larger organizations is necessary for industrial level expansion, according to waste management organization Clean River Recycling Solutions.

“To really scale it, would be bringing more partners on board that have the specific industrial experience to grow it, or having partners that are already doing a similar thing at a bigger scale,” Norman said.

As such, Campbell continues to facilitate greater department engagements, including work with the West Side Environmental Justice Alliance, the City of Chicago’s Department of Environment and private companies, such as the Lakeshore Recycling Department — the city’s current waste sanitation provider. 

Yet, beyond its network of partners and collaborators, the project continues to put community action and education at the heart of its mission — hosting educational pop-up events, promoting waste collection points and encouraging volunteers to join the production process by coming in, sorting plastics by color and shredding them for fabrication.

While the littered landscape of waste reduction continues to evolve, the vibrant and visionary Redemptive Plastics project spells progress for individuals, neighbors and the Chicago community at large.