Arsenal Arts Installation:
Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown MA.

The Watertown Arsenal was the first center for testing materials and chemicals in the United States. Begun by the new republic at the end of the eighteenth century to store munitions, by the time of the Civil War, the Arsenal had become a center for research, development and manufacturing. By the mid twentieth century, the site was deemed too crowded and much too close to densely occupied civilian communities to continue to function as a weapons research facility. The site has since been developed as a combination shopping mall, high tech research and incubation site and office space for a variety of local businesses.

One of the buildings on the site, a machine shop dating to the 1850’s, has been dedicated to he arts—the Arsenal Center for the Arts—Arsenal Arts. Working with Virginia Prescott, a local writer and historian, I assembled short quotes from a living history project directed by Ms. Prescott. At the dedication of Arsenal Arts, I projected the short phrases onto the façade of the art center. The quotes swooped and scanned the building for six hours, bringing alive the people who had worked, built and populated the old arsenal and made it part of their community.