DEARBORN, MI – High school students from Dearborn’s Pockets of Perception (POP) student design team recently visited the construction site of Dearborn’s new Intermodal Passenger Rail Station where the mosaic mural they designed will be installed. The station is scheduled for completion in mid 2014.
The POP team includes 10 students from Edsel Ford High School, Dearborn High School and Fordson High School. Since September 2012, the students have worked together, under the guidance of instructors Wendy Sample and Mohamad Bazzi, to design the mosaic mural that will be a focal point in the new station.
From left: Mohamad Bazzi, POP instructor; Mike Kirk, Rail Station Architect from Neumann/Smith Architecture; Claire Young, Edsel Ford High School; Siham Saleh and Aleen Bazzi, Fordson High School; and Jack Davis, Dearborn High School.
Last spring, the students designed and made dozens of clay tiles in various patterns, sizes, and colors. Nearly a year later, the tiles will be installed on an interior wall at the base of a staircase at the rail station.
Once the station opens to the public in late 2014, each day hundreds of travelers will pass beneath the students’ colorful tile artwork as they ascend the staircase to reach the glass-walled corridor, dubbed “the bridge.” The bridge crosses the railroad tracks on the south side of the station, giving passengers access to a new pedestrian entrance to The Henry Ford.
Bazzi noted, “When determining the theme and tile designs for the mosaic, the POP team carefully considered that the station is going to be a transportation gateway, welcoming visitors from near and far when they come to visit Dearborn and The Henry Ford.”
Motion, energy, the historic significance of The Henry Ford just on the other side of the tracks from the new rail station, and the impact that the station will have on the future of Dearborn were all elements the students discussed as they collaborated to design the mosaic mural.
The POP project, an acronym for Pockets of Perception – We Are One Community, focuses on young people, encouraging multicultural understanding while cultivating their creativity and investment in the community through the creation of public art. The POP project is an initiative of the Dearborn Community Fund (DCF) as it supports arts, cultural and recreational programs that enrich the Dearborn community.
Students on the 2012-14 POP team (listed with their grade level) are: Dearborn High School students Mona Beydoun (12), Mary Charara (12), and graduates Jack Ashraf Davis, Francisco Nunez and Leah Wendzenski. Edsel Ford High School students Khalid Amin McDowell (11) and Claire Young (12) and Fordson High School students Reem Aoun (12), Aleen Bazzi (12) and Siham Saleh (11) round out the team.
To see additional photos of the POP design team working on the mosaic project, visit the Dearborn Community Fund on Facebook.
For more information about the POP project and other programs sponsored by the Dearborn Community Fund, visit dearborncommunityfund.org or call the Dearborn Community Fund at 313-943-5478.
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