Can you describe the project Millennium Voices you are doing here in Browden county?

     The project is based on Portrait of Self and Our City Ourselves, it combines having the students at Dania Elementary School create both individual/personal archives and using the walls of the school to create a living communal archive. The students have access to a copier and have made hundreds of images of the hands of the people in the community, students, administrators, teachers and staff all have had their hands copied and placed up as a large mural in the building. Other walls in the school are covered with copies of toys and family pictures. The teachers brought in photographs of themselves as elementary school students, the halls of the school are filled with easily over a thousand copies, it is a visual feast.

     But that is only the beginning of the process, I am collecting and using the images as the resource for a mural that will cover four school buildings that face Rt 1. The images will be made from the childrens archives, my interaction with them, the Dania school archives and the city archive as well.

     It is hoped that we will expand the project to involve city hall and perhaps the streets around the school. So to complete the project I will be returning to Dania 5 times over the next 9 months.

Read the complete interview with Hugh in Dania Florida