Museum Without Walls Along The Legacy Trail

Public art can play an important role in communities. The purpose of the Museum Without Walls Project is to engage a broader audience in acknowledging this fact. Specifically, it will situate art in the public realm as a catalyst for dialogue about many critical issues facing the Commonwealth of Kentucky: health, wellness, our unique environment, and a more holistic understanding of how each of these impacts our legacy.

This initiative, led at UK by Christine Huskisson, builds on the work her students did for the Legacy Trail, a public initiative led by the Knight Foundation. Since its inception in 2007 this trail has belonged to the public; it was conceived through a community process and has involved public input through its groundbreaking in March of 2010. The Museum Without Walls initiative too has been an effort engaging multiple organizations with an eye on future opportunities for residents and visitors alike in the Commonwealth.

At the inception of this project, UK students helped establish an active consortium of local organizations, whose purpose was to secure a master plan for public art along the nine-mile walking trail between downtown Lexington and the Kentucky Horse Park. This consortium now known as the Legacy Trail Public Art Consortium, secured funding from the Legacy Center at the Blue Grass Community Foundation and LexArts to compose and issue an RFQ for master planners who would articulate a public art master plan. That plan was completed and unveiled on April 13, 2010.

The master plan lays out the inclusion of conceptual and physical works of art and calls for them to interpret the many narratives connected to the Legacy Trail, like the importance of the limestone base of our pasture lands and the Cane Run Watershed, both of which are now in jeopardy. The Museum Without Walls Project enables Lexington residents and visitors alike to learn about these environmental concerns by increasing accessibility to them and their many interpretations via a mobile app titled TakeItArtside! By increasing access to public art along the Trail, this initiative builds new opportunities, elevates the quality of life in the Commonwealth, and proposes to leave a healthier and more holistic legacy for generations to come.

Community partners have included the Knight Foundation and members of the Legacy Trail Public Art Consortium (the Bluegrass Community Foundation's Legacy Center, LexArts, the Lexington Art League, and the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government). Our ongoing educational partners are Georgetown College, Transylvania University, and LexVC.

Expected Actions and Outcomes

The project hopes:

To continue to situate art as a bridge to learning about critical issues facing the Commonwealth.
To facilitate cooperation among related entities in the realm of public art.
To establish on-going involvement for UK students in the Department of Art and our many partners.
To aid in completion of a master plan for public art along the trail, one that secures a position for future engaged research into the value of public art.
To create an experience of cultural openness through public art and the telling of multiple narratives, including ecology, biology, natural history, and local history, rather than that of a singular curatorial voice; to situate public art as storytelling vehicle and aid to move beyond a single master narrative and engage multiple stories, the stories that generate a legacy.
To situate art as educational tool for residents and visitors alike, specifically as it can reveal individual impact on our legacy.
To create a formal document chronicling lessons learned from this initiative as well as other public art initiatives.
To encourage establishment of a formal commission for public art, one that will ultimately consider past and present public art initiatives in Lexington and the formation of a formal master plan for public art.
To position Lexington and the region as forward-thinking in the realm of public art as it relates to our environment.
To ensure further engaged research into the place art can hold in educating this community.