“We have only one planet. If we screw it up, we have no place to go.”
Senator Bennett Johnston said this in 1988. Nine…teen…eighty…eight. In all honesty, we’ve been screwing it up for decades. We’ve got one last shot at sticking around. So, Nowhere Collective exists to inspire and shift our culture toward radical compassion for people and planet. We believe creators, makers, artists and tinkerers are the answer to going nowhere together.
Support our creators through the marketplace offering re-usable trash-bound materials and finished upcycled goods.
Join an imaginative sustainability workshop and community of joyful humans and businesses.
Humans are ambitious beings when we put our minds to it. We can turn waste streams into waste dreams. Through collaboration, creativity and skill, we reclaim, repurpose, and re-home stuff that might otherwise go nowhere good.
Choose to stay.
Choose to play.
Choose today.
Katy Osborn
Founder & Maker
All through my gloriously zig-zaggy career, three things shine through: creativity, connection and a fascination for human behavior. I grew up surrounded by imaginative, crafty, resourceful people. My family was always making something.
Fascinated by the magical inner workings of the mind, I focused on behavioral psychology in college, which led me to a career in advertising in Chicago. To meet people, I joined the Chicago Conservation Corps, which sparked my personal commitment to sustainability and my passion for dumpster diving. In 2012, I co-founded a boutique creative studio with my two sisters working with women-owned, mission-driven businesses. One of our clients inspired my sisters and I to produce a documentary, Head to Head, the ultimate ethnographic deep dive into human behavior. With the film, I fell head first into creative community-building.
Over the years, my individual eco-conscious actions felt smaller and smaller in the face of accelerating climate disasters, which compelled me to launch Nowhere Collective, tapping back into the creative network I built and love.