Invisible Ground vs Ohio Freedom Path

Invisible Ground is an Athens, Ohio-based multimedia project that utilizes audio, augmented reality, visual elements, and place-based storytelling to engage people in their communities' history. Invisible Ground has successfully created 17 Immersive Historic Sites and documentary-style podcast episodes at locations across southeast Ohio. The project focuses on the region's diverse history and the stories of everyday people, places, and events in southeast Ohio. After downloading the Invisible Ground app on their mobile device, participants will access an augmented reality view of the historical site, where a digital image of the past is overlaid on the present-day camera view. The accompanying Invisible Ground podcast highlights these stories through engaging, place-based documentary storytelling. The audio in the Invisible Ground app provides the audience with an experience that podcast audio alone cannot offer, as it enables them to hear the voices connected to the story while in the same physical space. It is a multisensory storytelling experience designed to bring the past to life.

While walking or biking the 15-county Ohio-to-Erie Trail, hear of daring escapes, clashes with slave catchers, events that shaped the nation, and the courage, and resourcefulness of participants brought together on Ohio's Underground Railroad. Audio from speeches, poems and letters bring Ohio's remarkable anti-slavery history to life.