“What are the fundamental aspects of how communities connect together?”
Palo Alto High School’s Art + Tech Club and Saratoga High School’s Art Club answered this question as they unveiled their latest collaborative installation, “Interwoven,”on May 13 at Saratoga High School.
The project consists of a mural made up of 36 3D-engineered tiles. Each tile is a visual representation of a student’s response to what their passion is, serving as a window into their creativity.
Freshman Selim Uyan, president of the Paly Art + Tech Club, said the project aimed to showcase the variety of student passions and interests.
“What got me motivated was the fact that we [the club] could build upon students’ lives and represent them in one piece that uplifts students’ lives together, bringing a more powerful and enriching community for all of us,” Uyan said. “I took a look at what makes students really special in this community [Saratoga High School], and what I noticed was that these students really voice out their passions.”
“Interwoven” is the second project done by the Art + Tech Club, the first being “Words We Live By,” a text-based mural displayed in the Wellness Center, completed in the fall.
According to Uyan, the club wanted to go beyond words with their second project in hopes of leaving an even greater impact.
“We really wanted to convey something that could go beyond just words, and that could go to images,” Uyan said. “Because we knew that images could convey 1000 words, I think that this project really dwelled upon us because of the design and the feeling that people could combine their voices to create something wonderful.”
“Interwoven” first started after senior Nicole Hao, president of Saratoga’s Art Club, reached out to Uyan in October 2025 to create a collaboration between the two schools. Hao said that she believed that school clubs should create projects that leave longer-lasting impacts on school campus communities.
“I’ve always had the idea that the club system at public schools honestly isn’t that great,” Hao said. “It really doesn’t incentivize you to go beyond and try to make something permanent. A lot of the time, people will just get through with their meetings, graduate, and forget about the club.”
According to Hao, the impression that the project was intended to leave was a sense of belonging among students.
“So this [the project] was ideas of students’ passions and showing the importance of community within them as well,” Hao said. “When making something that is a collaboration between schools, it’s really nice to call back to that school community.”
Hao said members of Art Club were responsible for designing the icons for the mural, while members of Art + Tech Club were responsible for converting the artwork into 3D-printed tiles.
However, Hao said a challenge throughout the collaboration was balancing artistic ideas with the physical limitations of 3D printing.
“There were a lot of times where we had to take feedback and make revisions on our end because there are certain constraints about having this thing physically printed that maybe we, as only digital artists, may not have expected,” Hao said.
Agreeing with this sentiment, Uyan said that the mural represents the possibilities of forming a community.
“We [the clubs] bring the idea that passions interconnect with each other and that we can collaborate with each other to bring a more colorful life to all of us,” Uyan said. “We display that multiple communities can really interweave together and make something wonderful, and students can connect with each other by what they choose to live from.”
According to freshman Art + Tech Club member James Trounce, the project took months of work for both clubs as a large portion of his free time was dedicated to working on “Interwoven.”
“I not only spent all my lunch periods on Wednesdays, but I also went home and did an hour or two [of work] every day,” Trounce said. “I think in total around 50 hours of work.”
Trounce said he completed 14 of the mural’s 36 tiles and described the mural as the club’s largest project, especially appreciating its variety and inclusivity.
“I’m really proud of the ones I did, especially the computer science, chess, and rock climbing tiles,” Trounce said.
According to Trounce, he looks forward to the future of the club and believes their project will only continue to inspire views.
“Students would get inspired [looking at the projects] to do more passions or maybe join in on some of these [projects],” Trounce said. “We [the club] are going to grow exponentially. In the coming years, it’s going to get way bigger … we’re going to do much larger projects. This is just the beginning.”
