Between Two Rivers: Safeguarding the Future of Greenup County's Arts & Culture

Safeguarding the Future of Greenup County’s Arts & Culture is a community readiness and resiliency project in Greenup County, Kentucky. This project will leverage the 15- year history of the College of Agriculture, Food & the Environment’s Cooperative Extension Community Arts program in Greenup County with the research-based expertise of the UK College of Fine Arts Arts Administration department. These partners will implement 1) an emergency preparedness training program designed for arts and culture organizations and 2) a hazard mitigation project that directly engages the arts and culture community in flood-vulnerable Greenup County in Appalachian Kentucky. We are requesting $132,699 from the National Endowment for the Arts to incorporate artists, arts organizations, and residents in Greenup County in a series of emergency management trainings, collaborative arts engagement opportunities, and technical assistance. We will do this in partnership with Greenup Fiscal Court’s Emergency Management department, Greenup County Community Arts Council, and community arts and culture organizations. By overlapping emergency management and preparedness training with creative placemaking, Between Two Rivers will explore a new way to convey the critical value of preparedness for rural arts & culture organizations. This project will culminate in responsive works of art exploring Greenup’s resiliency through its past, current and future relationship with the Ohio and Big Sandy rivers as well as innovative training methods for engaging arts and culture organizations through emergency management programs. Between Two Rivers will directly reinforce Greenup County’s place identity by helping residents meaningfully consider the impact of weather-related disasters on their cultural assets. Additionally, it will produce a replicable program for other Kentucky Extension counties to ensure our state’s arts, culture, and heritage organizations are equipped to respond in the event of a future natural disaster.