Community-funded 'Pockets of Perception' mural transforms Dearborn Historical Museum annex

At Brady and Garrison streets, students are turning the southeast wall of the Dearborn Historical Museum's Jack Tate Annex into a new downtown landmark. The 2026 Pockets of Perception mural is taking shape this summer on the annex, which serves as the museum's office building, bringing community-supported art to a highly visible corner of Dearborn's cultural landscape. The project runs from mid-June through mid-August.

Pockets of Perception is the Dearborn Community Fund's annual summer mural project, a student design-team public art initiative the fund has supported year after year since its launch in 2010. That consistency has given public art a place in the city's everyday life, shaping the stories, landmarks and identities residents encounter as they move through downtown.

The Dearborn Community Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on arts, recreation and cultural projects meant to improve quality of life in Dearborn. Led by Executive Director EmmaJean Woodyard, the fund relies primarily on charitable gifts from individuals, families, businesses, nonprofits and other foundations — all tax-deductible. A volunteer board and small part-time staff oversee its work raising money and recruiting volunteer support for eligible Dearborn projects, programs and events. Through those contributions, the fund supplies financial and volunteer resources for cultural and recreational programs that directly benefit residents. The model puts a civic question behind each new mural: When people who live, work and invest here support culture, what should they see reflected on their city's walls?

Pockets of Perception lets student designers help answer that question. For 2026, applications were open to students at any Wayne County school who will enter their junior year in fall 2026, with an April 17 deadline.

This year's team looked close to home for its imagery. The mural includes references to china in the Dearborn Historical Museum's collection and the Rosie the Riveter rose garden outside the McFadden-Ross House.

Sunshine Durant, POP director and arts resource director for Dearborn Public Schools and art teacher at River Oaks Elementary School, said, "The POP team also wanted to include the old city seal, and they incorporated the Rouge River and Ford Rouge Plant into the mural as well."

"They also included a vintage bicycle, as well as a section of lace, since the museum has a collection of vintage wedding dresses," Durant said.

The choices show which pieces of the city's history and character students have chosen to carry forward: its river and industry, its museum collections, its gardens, its old symbols and everyday objects.

The mural's position on the southeast side of the Jack Tate Annex places community-funded public art on a downtown municipal cultural institution where it meets people where they are — on a wall they can pass on foot or by car, beside an institution that keeps Dearborn's history in view.

Through the annual project, Woodyard, Durant and the student team turn local financial and volunteer support, student ideas and museum history into something residents can see every day: a changing portrait of Dearborn on a downtown wall.