The Global Meaningful Travel Map

I Was Here with VisitLEX

Explore downtown Lexington through a GPS-guided digital pass, featuring 11 stops that highlight the city's rich history and culture, all for free!

OUR EXPERIENCES
The I Was Here experience is a digital pass available via smart phone and the VisitLEX website. Using GPS geofencing, users will go through 11 “stops” in downtown Lexington, where people can learn more about the I Was Here project and history of Lexington. Every stop on the pass is within a one-block radius, centering around Henry Tandy Centennial Park and the Old Fayette County Courthouse (Courthouse Square). VisitLEX has created a postcard-sized informational brochure for the Visitors Center with a QR code to link to the download pass site. Each pass includes video and a written description. Once participants complete the pass, they can stop into the Visitors Center and pick up an I Was Here print as a prize.

Visit https://www.visitlex.com/things-to-do/i-was-here/

ABOUT US
I Was Here began in 2016 with a set of emblematic Ancestor Spirit Portraits created by photographing contemporary African Americans as archetypal Ancestor Spirits. The “here” of I Was Here begins with an honest look at the history of place. Ancestor Spirit Portraits have been integrated into key historic sites across America. The project creates a visual for an invisible history, asking us to examine who we are to each other, who we are as a nation and how we can work to repair the wound in our citizenship created by enslavement. Accompanying written and spoken presentations by historians, citizens and scholars help us to remember who was ‘here’. The project draws attention to sites of African American significance by presenting this wound in our citizenship through a lens of power, dignity, beauty, and sanctity creating visual markers to create a monument to a people.

OUR IMPACT
What I Was Here accomplishes with its public art and public history installations is a mindful, reverent, and powerful acknowledgment of American history; history that may be misunderstood, misinterpreted, ignored, or simply forgotten. The project invites as much as it prods visitors to allow this acknowledgment to hold public space and to accept the echoes layered into the project’s name, I Was Here.

DETAILS
To learn more, contact: lexingtonky@visitlex.com

What are your minimum and maximum group sizes?
There are no limits to the number of downloads of the pass.

Do you require visitors to pre-book?
No

Do you have group rates?
The experience has no cost

Do you pay commissions to travel advisors?
No

What languages do you offer your services in?
English

When are you open?
The VisitLEX Visitors Center is open Monday-Saturday 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

What accommodations do you make for people living with disabilities?
Wheelchair accessible entrance and visitors center. All digital experiences are both audible and visual. We provide information on accommodations, attractions, and restaurants that can accommodate visitors with disabilities.