Object Timeline
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Higher Ground
This is a Project. It was designed by staff and students, Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, with Harlan County community and collaborator: Community Performance International and Carpetbag Theater (Knoxville, Tennessee). It is dated 2003–present.
Responding to the prescription-drug abuse crisis in Harlan County, Kentucky, the Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College designed the Higher Ground participatory-theater project. Local oral histories, gathered by students and volunteers, are woven into original musical dramas—such as Foglights—rooted in the challenges and joys of life in the Appalachian coalfields. The project engaged thousands of post-coal Kentuckians in a creative civic dialogue on the difficult issues of out-migration, land-use, mine disasters, and drug abuse to help rebuild their community.
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition By the People: Designing a Better America.