During the 19th century, Louisville, Kentucky was a trade hub along the Ohio River route where tens of thousands of enslaved African Americans were purchased and moved to plantations further South. This fall, an innovative technology project is bringing the history of the city’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade out of the history books and into three dimensions.

Footprints Through Time, produced by IDEASxLab’s (Un)Known Project, uses augmented reality (AR) and a mobile app to allow users to learn and interact with key historical moments and places at several sites across Louisville and the broader region.

“In a time when Black history is being stripped from classrooms across the country, we knew it was vital to create spaces where people can learn the truth about the history of enslavement,” said (Un)Known Project cofounders and executive producers Hannah Drake and Josh Miller. “While Kentucky has done a great job of crafting a certain narrative its role in enslavement is often hidden.”

Becoming Immersed in the Narrative

The platform is the result of a technological partnership with design and animation studios Collimation and MindWise, and a collaboration with museums and cultural heritage institutions in the Louisville area including the Fraizier History Museum and the Bernheim Forest and Arboretum (the site of an unmarked cemetery where enslaved people were buried), and has extended to Bookman Cemetery in Irmo, South Carolina.

When users download the Footprints Through Time app, they are immersed in a narrative where they navigate historical moments at several sites, starting with the Louisville riverwalk. They take on the perspective of a boy named Sam, who, on a walk with his best friend Isaac, encounters Isaac’s great-great-grandmother Lula. She transports them through history to recover stories of the lives and resilience of enslaved people in Louisville.

This format is “an invitation to see yourself as part of the experience, not just an observer,” Drake and Miller said. “We thought a lot about how their stories, that move from the days of enslavement to present day, chart a course that helps us understand our interconnectedness. The visuals that appear in the environment as Lula or Isaac talk at each location continue to add layers of nuance and of imagination and excitement.”

Limitless Creativity

"We were able to visit these plantations," Drake said. "Directly behind the Lorick headstone is a mass grave of approximately 123 enslaved people along with several marked graves of enslaved people who were reinterred in the cemetery." The (Un)Known Project is currently working with Bethlehem Lutheran Church nearby to honor Drake's ancestors and the others buried there. Creating cinematic, interactive animations was new territory for the (Un)Known Project. The organization’s previous work has included public art installations, programs, and performances dedicated to local descendant communities and Black history. Footprints Through Time involved a 47-person team, according to Drake and Miller, and expanding their own vision of what AR technology could make possible.

“Augmented Reality allows you to hear voices, music, poetry...and see what the world around you may have looked like centuries ago,” they said. “There really was no limit to what could be created visually, we just needed to dream bigger.”

The process of creating Footprints Through Time became even more personal for Drake as she uncovered that her ancestors, Hannah and Warren Lorick, were enslaved by the Lorick family, who owned plantations in Lexington, South Carolina. This inspired the project's expansion to include Bookman Cemetery as a site connected to the app.