The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project is an ongoing visual history of Kentucky.
Imagine being able to look at a whole state over a period of 120 years and picture the changes you would notice:
- • How we looked
- • What we wore
- • How we worked
- • What we made
- • How we used the Land
- • What we did for fun
- • How we worshipped
- • How we lived
The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project is the state’s third photographic recording done in 40-year increments.
Taking inspiration from the work of the Farm Security Administration (1935–1943) and building on the success of Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project (1975–1977), The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project II will go into each of the state’s 120 counties making a contemporary visual record of Kentucky. This will be the third time in an eighty year period that photographers have roamed the state recording the landscape and how Kentuckians live, work and play.
The third iteration of the Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project, when finished, will be presented as a book, exhibitions, a permanent collection, and whatever multi-media presentations the Project adapts to. Younger photographers will be tasked with keeping the Project alive and producing the fourth iteration forty years from now.
Much has been done, but much is still left to do.
We ask for your help in continuing to document Kentucky.
