Born and currently residing in the United States, Kaleb Stevens is an artist and student at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa studying Community and Regional Planning. In 2017 he began co-producing community cultural events and artistic experiences in central Iowa, and since has co-produced or performed in nearly 50 cultural experiences in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri including concerts, poetry exhibitions, and a temporary sculpture installation. In 2017 he formed the ad hoc creative agency Lonely Grave LLC and began collaborating with young designers and artists to provide artistic and culturally stimulating events in central Iowa, supporting artists to display their forms of self expression for the benefit of the greater community.
He seeks to challenge systemic oppression with the commutative properties of artistic expression and believes that art plays a crucial role in establishing socially equitable frameworks by amplifying the collective voice of people belonging to oppressed communities. In 2020 Kaleb co-produced Speak Your Peace, an outdoor space activation in Ames, Iowa where unheard Black voices in the community were given space to speak and be heard. In 2020 Kaleb was a featured artist in the Outrage to Change exhibit created to amplify the voice of Black artists in central Iowa as well as producer of the Dream Cube, a collaborative modular art installation created in connection with the Iowa Youth Homeless Center and organized by Bravo Greater Des Moines in an effort to amplify the needs of youth experiencing homelessness in Polk county, Iowa.
Kaleb values learning human insights from the artists he has the fortune of collaborating with and has a passion for supporting storytellers to build and connect with communities. He finds that encouraging artistic expression in people who do not consider themselves to be artists is one of the most rewarding experiences, and as such he hopes that the projects and events that he helps to plan reflect the viewers and their communities as much as they amplify the artist(s) involved.
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