A Place Called Home | Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Legacy

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.

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.”