FOUNDER & CEO

Chelsea Ritter-Soronen is a public artist, urbanist, and social entrepreneur working at the intersection of public art, transportation systems, and climate resilience. She is the Founder of Ground Shift Studio and Chalk Riot, and brings over fifteen years of experience creating public artwork across the United States and in seven other countries.

Chelsea’s work focuses on the strategic integration of art into the public right-of-way, with particular emphasis on traffic calming, multimodal safety, equitable mobility, and urban heat mitigation. Her practice bridges creative delivery with policy alignment, with a commitment to hyperlocal storytelling.

Chelsea has served as technical consultant to municipal transportation departments and public art programs, contributing to asphalt art pilots, arts-in-the-right-of-way standards, and authored the DC Department of Transportation’s Ground Murals Best Practices Guide. She has spoken at conferences such as NACTO Designing Cities , Bloomberg CityLab, and the National Bike Summit. You may view her TedX talk on the Power of Pavement Art here.

Chelsea is currently a Master of Sustainable Transportation candidate at the University of Washington and received her BFA in Theatrical Design from The Conservatory of Theater Arts at Webster University. She is a fellow of the United States Japan Leadership Program and the Gather artivism program, and served as an inaugural teaching artist in residence at the Kennedy Center’s Moonshot Studio.

Chelsea was recently recognized as one of Washington Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, and is proudly and lovingly based in Washington, D.C.

SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER

Currently serving as Senior Project Manager at Ground Shift Studio, Sam oversees the execution of installations from initial intake email to the final coat of paint. They have worked under Ground Shift Studio’s CEO and Founder, Chelsea Ritter-Soronen, since 2021. Sam’s experience working in the right-of-way ignited a passion for tactical urbanism, which has flourished during her time at Chalk Riot. Over the last several years, Sam has held every position possible on a work site, which makes her a valuable and natural leader in any setting, indoors or out.

Sam previously managed public and private programming at the American University Museum, collaborating with artists, embassies, and institutional partners to develop exhibition relevant events and cultural exchange initiatives.
In her previous role at Arts Club, they managed programming and experiences for their educational art studio. She currently serves as a studio manager for 3711 Studios, the home base for Ground Shift Studio. With a background in Art History and Political Science from American University, Sam brings creative and strategic perspectives to consulting, social campaigns, and public art installations. She has traveled to Kenya and Brazil with Ground Shift and is looking forward to their next journey in Japan.

Sam’s personal painting practice is deeply rooted in the exploration of art history, particularly the northern renaissance and the surrealist movements. She hopes to be an eternal novice and practice in a variety of mediums outside of painting.

CHALK RIOT COORDINATOR

Aja’s commitments to community building and arts education guide her enthusiastic leadership of our community chalk activations! Aja has also served on several Ground Shift pavement mural sites, and is a public school art teacher.

Aja is a visual artist and curator whose portraiture work explores the intersection of resilience, vulnerability, and the architecture of the human form. Drawing from a background in the US Army and competitive bodybuilding, her practice emerged in 2020 as a vehicle for healing, evolving into a formal study of the "spiritual anatomy" of her subjects. Moon’s work has garnered international attention, with features at the Boomer Gallery in London and New York Fashion Week. She currently lives and works in the DMV area, using her art as a conduit for radical self-care and community transformation.