Waterfront Public Art Project Elkhorn City, Kentucky (in progress)

Under the auspices of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Collaboration with Suzanne Lacy, and Yutaka Kobayashi who were invited to work with residents of Elkhorn City, Kentucky, a small ex-mining town with a population under 1,000 people.

Nearby Breaks Interstate Park, which straddles Kentucky's West Virginia border, contains the 250-million-year-old Breaks Canyon, considered to be the "Grand Canyon of the South." The Kentucky side of Breaks Interstate Park is under threat of natural gas drilling, one of many pending or already accomplished ecological devastations of the regional economy.

"Landed: A Project for Elkhorn City" is sponsored locally by the Elkhorn City Heritage Council, residents who are working with the artists to enhance local awareness of the natural environment, particularly the river, and support agendas to build the town's identity as an eco-tourist destination for naturalists, whitewater rafters, and kayakers.

The proposal entails restoring a waterfront; designing an interpretive park with mini-wetlands, where storm water runoff from a gas station hits the river; creating a riverfront performance with Louise Smith, theater artists from Ohio, and collecting river and land stories as part of the Heritage Council's oral history project.

For more information, see the Arts & Culture addition to the Elkhorn City Area Heritage Council's Website.