Street Theory Collective presents A Place Called Home, an exhibition by Cambridge Community Arts Center, on view June 25 – August 28.

Community Art Center has been an integral part of Cambridge’s Port neighborhood since the Great Depression. It has served as a creative hub and home for generations of Cambridge children, youth, and families. The organization has particularly served communities of color, through offering spaces of learning, gathering, and artistic expression. Founded in 1937, Community Art Center carries forward the legacy of the WPA-era Community Art Centers, only a handful of which still exist today. Its beginnings were humble: a basement space in Newtowne Court, one of the country’s earliest public housing developments built through New Deal support.

What came out of the interdisciplinary arts programs at Community Art Center, was captivating documentation and commentary in the form of murals, performance art, and other creative projects. An early photography program enabled program participants to capture intimate views of their lives, their families, their community, all through a youth lens. They would learn to develop their photographs in a darkroom at the Art Center, leaving a tangible trace of the human hand in every finished print.

This collection of archival photographs offers a glimpse into a loving community that was once one of the most diverse in Cambridge, the Port. Each image holds a different story as seen through the eyes of the neighborhood youth who call the Port “home”. Community Art Center will exhibit these images in a show aptly named

A Place Called Home | Our Voice, Our Stories, Our Legacy: Celebrating Black Cambridge Youth Through The Arts.