The Paul Sawyier Public Library is proud to host the debut of a photography exhibit entitled Every Body Climbing: Documenting the Adaptive Climbers Festival in Red River Gorge.
This October, the Adaptive Climbers Festival (ACF) will convene in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge for the fourth year. The Red River Gorge is renowned among rock climbers globally and is home to a rich history of the sport. As climbers with disabilities continue gathering and climbing the famous overhangs of “The Red” every fall, they too are adding to that history. So, in an effort to properly document the impact of this climbing cohort, journalist Emily Chen-Newton gathered field recordings, sit down interviews, and photographs representing the community.
Chen-Newton’s work is supported by the Berea College Archives and Special Collections, where the audio and photos will be permanently housed. In addition to archiving this material, Berea College's Loyal Jones Appalachian Center has produced a small traveling exhibit of museum quality prints and interactive “audio panels”. The entire project is designed with accessibility in mind, striving for audio/visual parity with audio and braille descriptions of the photographs and text of the sound bites. (Full exhibit guides printed in braille are available at the Check Out Desk.)
Emily Chen-Newton is a freelance adaptive sports journalist. As a rock climber with a disability herself, focusing her reporting on athletes with disabilities was a natural shift when she was looking for a new beat upon moving back to her home state of Kentucky in 2022. Her reporting can be heard on NPR and read in outlets such as Climbing Magazine. Though primarily working as a journalist now, the ACF archive is a return to her radio-roots as she began her audio career developing an oral history archive with Allegheny Mountain Radio in West Virginia in 2009. She then worked for several years in the flatlands of Nebraska, primarily reporting on child welfare and social justice issues before making her way back to the Kentucky bluegrass.
Every Body Climbing is on exhibit June 10-July 31. For more information on the Adaptive Climbers Festival, visit https://www.adaptiveclimbersfest.org/.
Please join us for a closing reception on July 31 at 6:00pm in the River Room. Enjoy a panel discussion featuring volunteers and climbers from the Adaptive Climbers Festival, a performance by local musician Emily Reed, and refreshments. Click here to register.