Between Fences

The Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc. will host a Smithsonian traveling exhibition called "Between Fences." The portable, 5-kiosk display was developed by the Smithsonian especially for rural audiences and small museums without access to traveling exhibitions due to space and cost limitations.

The exhibit will tour six Kentucky communities from October 2008 until July 2009. Sites were chosen based on their geographic location, ideas for auxiliary events, and physical display space.

About the Exhibit: We live Between Fences. We may hardly notice them, but they are dominant features in our lives and in our history. Built of hedge, concrete, wood and metal, fences skirt our properties and are central to the American landscape. We use them to enclose our houses and neighborhoods. They are decorative structures that are as much part of the landscape as trees and flowers. Industry and agriculture without fences would be difficult to imagine. Private ownership of land would be an abstract concept. But fences are more than functional objects. They are powerful symbols. The way we define ourselves as individuals and as a nation becomes concrete in how we build fences. Through an examination of boundaries, place, and space, Between Fences will explore how neighbors and nations divide, protect, offend, and defend through the boundaries they build.

Click here to go to the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street Program web site.

For more information, please contact Kathleen Pool at 859/257-5932 or kathleen.pool@uky.edu

Between Fences

will be visiting the following sites.

10/11/08 - 11/29/08 South Central Kentucky Cultural Center, Glasgow
12/06/08 - 01/17/09 Georgetown and Scott County Museum, Georgetown
01/24/09 - 02/21/09 Pine Mountain State Resort Park, Pineville
02/28/09 - 04/18/09 Wrather West Kentucky Museum, Murray
04/25/09 - 06/06/09 Oldham County History Center, La Grange
06/13/09 - 07/25/09 Boyle County Public Library, Danville

The Kentucky Humanities Council is also bringing another Museum on Main Street exhibit to Kentucky in 2008 called New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music. For information about this exhibit, click here.