Mark Kidd
January marked the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty, President Johnson’s initiative that charged America’s institutions to create “maximum feasible participation” for those most affected by lack of opportunity. This focused effort made a lasting difference on living standards in Appalachia – but poverty, high unemployment, and shortened lifespans outlasted the war. During the last 18 months, Eastern Kentucky lost 6,000 coal mining jobs, often the highest paying career available in our region, leaving coal employment at its lowest levels since record keeping began in the 1920s.
Eastern Kentucky has 20 counties which are federally-designated as distressed, more than twice the number of any other state in Appalachia. Distressed counties have a three-year average unemployment rate, per capita market income, and poverty rate that fall within the bottom ten percent of the nation. On a recent winter weekday in Pikeville, Kentucky, almost 1,700 people traveled from mountain counties throughout Eastern Kentucky to participate in a day-long summit named “SOAR” — Shaping Our Appalachian Region. State and federal political leaders solicited ideas for a new regional planning process, which produced 600 written ideas about how to make positive change. We could not ask for a more encouraging sign that the local will exists to sustain our communities regardless of persistent, grinding economic distress.
Our region’s arts and culture sector is poised to make contributions to the civic, social, and economic transitions that are necessary for the future. Local partnerships that incorporate artists, arts organizations, social services, civic organizations, and the public have proven themselves a potent way to help a broad cross-section of community members take on complex projects here, including economic development. With this kind of infrastructure in place, communities can identify local issues and develop creative, ongoing solutions.
The Higher Ground project in Harlan County exemplifies how art can open lines of conversation and action around some of our region’s most difficult issues, and is an example of how community college systems can join with local organizations to make change. Large volunteer casts have created and performed new theater work that inspires discussion and action on topics such as prescription drug abuse, the changing coalmining industry, and the difficult choices facing young people torn between staying in the mountains and leaving their homes for education and employment. Higher Ground is not only an open forum for discussing important issues facing Harlan County residents, but also creates opportunities for participants to take action.
Above: A five-minute documentary video about Higher Ground, filmed by After Coal, which features performance footage and interviews with local volunteer artists.
In Letcher County, a partnership that includes Appalshop, the City of Jenkins (population: 2,401), the Kentucky Trail Town program, and the National Endowment for the Arts is demonstrating the roles that permanent and temporary public art can play in re-envisioning the downtown and public spaces of a former coal company town. Local and national artists participating in this project, entitled “A City Built on Coal”, are creating murals, a large-scale photographic installation, and walking/driving tour that also brings to life the architecture, culture, and experiences of a coal community in Appalachia through digital media.
For the last 20 years, funding for artists, arts organizations, arts education in our schools, and community cultural programs have been cut at the state and federal levels. But even in this difficult climate there are proven national examples of how community-based arts programs can be reinvigorated through cross-sector investment. Many rural communities benefit from educational and technical assistance programs offered by cooperative extension offices, a network of local agencies based in our public land grant universities. Here in Eastern Kentucky, using local public funds along with resources from the University of Kentucky, the Pike County Cooperative Extension Service supports a full time Fine Arts Extension Agent and arts programs, with a mission “to create and support opportunities in the arts for citizens that will stimulate creativity, promote participation, and recognize artists, arts educators, and arts supporters at all levels and mediums.”
Breaking the Cycle is an Appalachian Media Institute documentary about recovering from domestic violence, as told by a mother and a son in Letcher County, Kentucky.
Over the last 25 years, Appalshop’s Appalachian Media Institute (AMI) has intensively trained more than 1,500 young people who have produced over 125 youth-made media projects, ranging from profiles of Appalachian artists and artisans, to explorations of regional identity, to critiques of the economic, environmental and societal impacts of coal mining. The AMI training model is a practical framework to help young people create expressive documentary media that is successful technically and aesthetically. By designing their own projects and helping lead a media production team, AMI participants gain useful professional experience. Young people also gain equally practical experience in finding what is positive and affirming in their culture, using the arts to speak truth, celebrating that which is healthy and beautiful, and exploring the challenges that face our communities in a clear-eyed and deliberate way.
Participants in the Appalachian Media Institute work as teams to learn digital media tools and then put those tools and skills to use in their own documentary video projects.
Artists and cultural organizations have a crucial role to play in transforming our Appalachian communities. If we allow economic development to be decoupled from cultural development, we risk inviting colonial economic models and another 50 years of boom and bust economic cycles in Appalachia. Art and culture are necessary for development that supports the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual life of the people. When one develops the whole community, all its elements become healthier and more resilient – people, economy, and environment.
