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  • Work on this object ended.

2003

  • Work on this object began.

2016

2025

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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.

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We have 1 video that features Higher Ground.

Higher Ground 4: Foglights

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition By the People: Designing a Better America.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/420777947/ |title=Higher Ground |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=11 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>