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(Un)Known Project

@unknownprojecttrail

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Unearthing and honoring the names and stories of enslaved Black people in America and the 🌎 African diaspora through artistic spaces & experiences 👣

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It’s so hard to distill 3 days of magic into a social media recap, but I hope this gives you a little bit of the #OBIconf26 to take home with you, wherever that is.
Thank you for the memories, the sense of Belonging, and the affirmation that a world in which we all belong is not only possible, but that we can create it right now 💚

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Early morning handstand practice at the Big Four Bridge in Louisville, KY using @kensuifitness YinYang bars

@unknownprojecttrail America 250 “We are America too” sweatshirt

#handstand #calisthenics #queerathlete #louisvillekentucky #bigfourbridge

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Ohio Rive, Louisville, Kentucky 👣 view from near our @unknownprojecttrail #publicart installations

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Exciting things are planned for our @unknownprojecttrail site along the Ohio River in Louisville as it becomes the (Un)Known Project Sculpture Park over the next year! Hard to believe our first installation, On the Banks of Freedom, created by William M Duffy and @caudill.dave in June 2021!

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Another reading, panel discussion, and book signing for this important project, this time at Hotel 21C in Louisville on October 4, 4-6pm. Hope to see you there. This @joshmillerventures @hannahdrake628 @unknownprojecttrail @sadiqanoni collaboration will. not. be. silent.

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Outfit of the day for a visit to @21clouisville and our event at @frazierhistorymuseum in Louisville

@unknownprojecttrail Wearable Photos silk print
Bag @diff__seoul
Ring @adeledejak
Pants @levis
Shoes @thefryecompany

#contemporaryart #ootd #queerfashion #silkscarfstyling #21cmuseumhotel

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The #ArtistsAndAfros team is excited to announce our first #juror :: the incomparable Hannah Drake!

In February 2019, Drake was selected by the Muhammad Ali Center to be a Daughter of Greatness.

Drake is the chief creative officer of IDEAS xLab, an artist-run nonprofit based in #Louisville, #Kentucky. In 2021, @nytimes recognized her work on the @unknownprojecttrail. #UnKnownProject is a multimedia installation meant to recognize all the Black people who were enslaved in Kentucky and beyond.

Recently, she was selected as one of the Best of the Best in Louisville, Kentucky, for her poem “Spaces”

Thank you @hannahdrake628 for your time, your integrity, your talent, and your love 🙌🏾✨🙌🏾

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This morning, I went to the river. I walked and noticed, sat and prayed. I imagined backward in time and visioned forward into the future. I witnessed humans sheltering behind umbrellas and bushes on the banks, bunnies hopping, a heron's sailing dance over the waters, a dead cicada in regal repose. I stood where others have stood, and one day I will die, as they did. Aligning with the grand material and spiritual channel of the Ohio River, I remembered, as Wendell Berry wrote, to "Practice resurrection."

This afternoon, I had the joy of sharing lunch with a friend I've known since childhood. They have founded the first indigenous reparations organization in Louisville - the @shawneehonorfund. Hearing fortuitous twists and turns of their journey, I was reminded that we belong to Life and the Land. As we repair relationships with our kin of all kinds, we heal ourselves and rematriate our spirits, becoming humbler and more present. We are not here to colonize new frontiers, but reacclimate ourselves to horizons so wide and ancient that many lifetimes could not cover the breadth of wonder.

Hummingbird has visited me plenty this season in a way she hasn't before. A few weeks back, when a moment of confusion and despair gripped my heart and I mistrusted my own adherence to Life's Flow, she bobbed right in front of my face to give me a spiritual talking-to. Her flitting presence has been a balm. But these birds are migrating south again soon, teaching me once more about impermanence and the natural order of seasons. My miniature winged hierophant may depart, and her medicine remains. It is mine to steward now.

What makes the swell of waters a flood of abundance or a deluge of destruction? Does it depend on how we build around the inevitable ebbs and flows of existence, what stories we tell of it? What deaths are required for the new life we will celebrate? Rather than chart the map with false confidence, I surrender to Here and Now, diving deep. What does the water say? "You may look like you're barely moving, but the current is sure." Such a blessing it is to be alive as a material and spiritual channel for worlds to come.

Return. Honor. Flow.

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From spoons to marbles, bones and pipe remnants, don’t miss seeing the Louisville to Liberty exhibit at the @frazierhistorymuseum, and join us Sept 15, 2026 for Frazier250: Louisville to Liberty: The Blackburns’ Journey!

Overview: An enslaved couple in Louisville, a daring escape, a jailbreak, and finally a new life in Canada—learn about the incredible lives of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn on September 15 during Underground Railroad Month. Archaeologist and author Karolyn Smardz Frost, who uncovered their story in Toronto, will join us. So will Hannah Drake and Josh Miller from the (Un)Known Project, Lamont Collins from Roots 101, and the Frazier’s Rachel Platt, who traveled to Toronto. For the first time in the United States, we’re sharing some of the couple’s artifacts in our exhibit and this program, Louisville to Liberty: The Blackburns’ Journey.

Visit fraziermuseum.org for tickets 🎟️

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Who were Thornton and Lucie Blackburn?

In 2023, a group from Louisville—including the Frazier's Rachel Platt, the (Un)Known Project's Hannah Drake and Josh Miller, and Roots 101's Lamont Collins—went to Canada to learn the answer.

They met with archaeologist Karolyn Smardz Frost, who has worked for decades to bring the Blackburns' story to light.

The Blackburns were freedom seekers who escaped slavery in Louisville in 1831 and eventually settled in Toronto.

Smardz Frost, as well as the rest of the group from the 2023 trip, will be in Louisville on September 15 for a program at the Frazier on the journey of this courageous couple. Objects excavated from the couple's home in Toronto will be here, on display in the US for the first time.

Learn more and get tickets on the Frazier's website (link in bio).

Pictured: Photos from the Toronto trip, 2023. Photo credits: Josh Miller.

#frazierkentuckyhistorymuseum #kentuckyhistory #blackburnsstory

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Get your copy of @unknownprojecttrail’s We the People Anthology at @carmichaelsbookstore in Louisville!

#anthology #shoplocal #unknownproject #booksbooksbooks #wethepeople

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We are honored to partner with the Unknown Project to recognize the history of the enslaved at our site. This special program will be a day of remembrance, reflection, and hope on the anniversary of emancipation in Kentucky.

Oxmoor, along with Riverside: the Farnsley-Moreman Landing, Farmington, and Locust Grove, will host a special unveiling of new signage at each of our sites as well as special activities. The unveiling of the sign at Oxmoor will begin at 2pm with a brief ceremony and remarks by Hannah Drake and Josh Miller, founders of the Unknown Project. Archaeologist Lori Stahlgren will be onsite and guests will be able to dig, sift or wash artifacts.

This is a FREE program. Make plans to join us for this special program on Saturday, August 8

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