The Oral History collection within Maine MILL’s newest exhibit features first-person accounts of people who have lived and worked in the area. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — The first exhibit in the newly renamed Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor delves into the lives of people who came from around the globe to make a home in Lewiston and Auburn.

The Mandala Community Weaving Project is a mixed media piece by Sarah Haskell. The mandala represents the textile, brick and shoe industries and the people in the community. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Some journeyed to the area to dig the canals that powered the mills in the 19th century. Others later worked in the mills, including a huge swell of immigrants from Quebec. And others are still arriving, many lending their energy to a community still recovering from the closure of those mills.

Rachel Ferrante, the nonprofit museum’s executive director, said the story and artifacts of the people who labored in the textile, shoemaking and brickmaking industries form the core of the museum’s permanent collection.

But the new exhibit, titled “Who We Are/Who Are We?” aims to expand the tale to gather in the histories of the many New Mainers who have shown up in the region in the past quarter century, including many whose families lived in Somalia and other African lands.

Telling “the more recent history of the area” for the exhibit, Ferrante said, meant expanding the original collection gathered by Museum L-A to fulfill its broader mission under its new name.

By focusing on immigration and identity, the new exhibit aims to tell the story of why people from around the globe headed to Maine — and Lewiston and Auburn in particular — as well why they opted to stay. It also tells in broad strokes how their decisions shaped the community.

Ferrante said the community today is an amalgam of many groups, including Greek, French, Chinese, Irish, Black Americans and recent immigrants from Africa.

“Lewiston Threads,” an interactive exhibit, invites museum-goers to select a color of string for their age group and attach their string to each statement that applies to them. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Trying to put all of it in context is a tall order for any museum, let alone a temporary exhibit in a museum that’s got its eye on moving to new quarters in a few years. But the show succeeds in driving home some major points.

Perhaps the most striking part of the exhibit is a section showing photographs of 10 Black residents that include QR codes that take visitors directly to oral history interviews with each of them, conducted last year by Marcelle Medford, a sociology professor at Bates College.

One of them, Araksan Egeuh, is a refugee from Djibouti, who told Medford she “had a childhood” where she was not free to play, so she’s making up for lost time.

“So now I’m an adult, but I call myself a big kid,” she said. “Cause I’m usually running behind the kids; if I’m in the playground they think I own the playground, the one that everyone wanna play with.”

Divine Selengbe, born in the Congo, moved to Lewiston at age 11 after living for a time in Vermont. She immediately loved the diversity of Lewiston.

Growing up, she said, she especially liked Forage Market and the Lewiston Public Library.

When Medford asked her why, Selengbe answered, “I thought I wanted to be a librarian. So I always really loved books. And reading always gave me comfort and it was my safe space to just be in a library surrounded by books. I just love just how cozy a library is.”

“And Forage is just very cute and I love cute places,” she added.

Egeuh, like others interviewed, offered some insights into the community that are worth pondering.

Brendan Michaud points out a mandala to his mother, Chantel, recently at the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor in Lewiston. The Mandala Community Weaving Project represents the textile, brick and shoe industries and the people in the community. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Egeuh said she heard a police officer talk about how Lewiston is a safe city in Maine but acknowledged he didn’t know why.

“I have an answer,” she told him, pointing out that Lewiston has both large white and Black populations, something she said many other Maine towns don’t have.

“When you have a group versus group — this group are afraid from this group, and this group are afraid from this group — so we get all respect. And we keep the situation safe,” Egeuh said.

“But when we’re all the same culture or the same religion, you have more crime,” she said.

Such stories and ideas from the vantage point of newcomers to the community — accurate or not — are now part of the museum’s collection of some 300 oral histories.

In the exhibit itself, visitors will find two key elements at each end of the hall.

At one end is a booth with two chairs, a little table and a lamp. It also has an iPad ready to record audio.

The idea of it, Ferrante said, is that “you can actually walk into our booth and record your own story.”

She said people can tell about their own lives by themselves if they like, or guided by some questions posted inside, such as “What is your name, age and nationality? How and why did you come to Lewiston? Why did you leave? Why did you stay? How do you define your community? How have you seen Lewiston change over time?”

Brendan Michaud, 9, left, and Lincoln Wilson, 11, write their personal greetings on a chalkboard at the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor as a part of the “Who We Are/Who Are We?” exhibit. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

It is also set up so two people can go inside and conduct an interview.

The idea is that the narrative people record “will inspire others to redefine Lewiston for themselves and imagine it as a site where everyone has the potential to thrive.”

At the other end of the room is an interactive art exhibit that visitors are encouraged to engage with.

Called “Lewiston Threads,” by Mary Corey March, the exhibit uses colored threads to weave between photos and statements all over the wall, tying people together and ultimately becoming a sort of living, multi-colored portrait of the community.

The “fabric” created by the exhibit is obviously an homage to the textile mills that played such a crucial role in the development of Lewiston.

While there, make sure to pause for a moment inside the exhibit and just listen.

In the background, an audio recording is playing random sounds from around town that a Bates College student captured, Ferrante said. It includes the gurgling river, church bells, children playing and more — some of the everyday sounds of life in Lewiston today.

There are also a few objects on display that touch on the long history of people coming to Lewiston, from a manuscript book written by a 19th century Irish immigrant to a Somali Bantu basket.

The reception desk in the middle of the hall has been lined with chalkboards so children can write hello in many languages.

The exhibit is slated to run through the year at the 35 Canal St. museum, which changed its name weeks ago from Museum L-A to Maine MILL. The current hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday.

Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, and free for children under 6.

The museum’s permanent collection is also covered by the admission fee.

For more information, go online at mainemill.org or phone 207-333-3881.