Tiles Tell Tales

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In collaboration with the Think Tank that is yet to be named, The Action Mill launched a new website today. We started out exploring how a new public transit line might affect the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. Public art from the last time a new line was built there gave us an opportunity to collect personal histories of the residents who were here thirty years ago.

Inside the Davis Square T stop there are 249 tiles created by students at the Powderhouse Community School in 1980. This new website is a place where they can publish updates on what they are doing now and what their memories are of growing up in Somerville. To help collect all the stories, everyone is invited to help us find the tile makers. To participate or learn more, go to DavisSquareTilesProject.com.

I grew up with many of the people who made these tiles and every time I ride the T I wonder what happened to all of them. We launched the site this morning and already I've heard from a bunch of people I haven't talked to in almost 20 years.

Thanks to Katie Hargrave, who's co-directing this project with me.