LET FREEDOM RING
CALL FOR ARTISTS
Deadline: March 25th
Modeled after the first residential telephone in the world which was installed here in Somerville in 1877 the Somerville Museum’s “Let Freedom Ring” public art project celebrates lesser known sites in Somerville where freedoms were fought.
The telephone revolutionized communication, collapsing distance and making it possible for voices to be heard across space. Let Freedom Ring draws on this powerful symbolism. Each 3D printed “telephone” becomes a listening and speaking point—connecting past and present, place and person, silence and voice.
This project celebrates both people and places: from the neighborhood where Pullman Porters built lives of dignity and leadership, to the homes where abolitionists and suffragists gathered, to the individuals whose courage expanded the meaning of freedom in their own time and ours. These sites are part of a living landscape shaped by acts of resistance.
Potential sites include the following:
1. Union square (Liberty Pole Square)
2. Leonard Grimes’ house
3. Ruth Veletta Jones - high school
4. MT Hollander house - suffrage
5. First telephone line -Charles Williams house
6. Cobble hill - possible Knox cannons, Seige of Boston and McLean Hospital practicing the "moral cure"
7. Primus Hall marker in Winter Hill near Fort site
8. Mystic River - Blessing of the Bay
9. Foss Park - history it is named for Saxton Foss, on Paul Revere's ride route, and today protests take place there from there to East Somerville Library
10. Malvern Ave, Elmhurst Street, Cameron ave - Pullman Porters neighborhood
11. Benjamin Roberts’ House
12. Somerville Museum - about the project
You can learn about these sites at the History on the Line exhibition and historic map on view at the Somerville Museum.
Artists are invited to pick up and paint a 3D printed replica of the first residential telephone inspired by one of the historical sites. The dimensions of each box are 12” x 6.5” x 6.5”.
Timeline:
March 25 - Deadline for applications
April 5-10 - Pick up boxes
May 28 - Deadline to return Painted box
June 2-10 - Installation
Compensation:
$500 for each selected artist
Interested artists should submit:
1) A proposal about how you would approach and interpret a site. Please include a first choice and a second choice. Paintings do not need to be realistic. Include a plan to weatherize the box. We want these to make it through at least one winter.
2)A portfolio of painted works that most represent the style you intend to use.
3) A resume or cv
4) A bio
Preference will be given to artists who live or have studios in Somerville
Create a single PDF file and email by March 25th to stephanie@somervillemuseum.org with the subject line:
“Let Freedom Ring Artist Call”
This project is funded by an MA250 grant from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism