ATHENS, Ohio — Stand in the grass by the Bulldog Shelter House, feel the sun on your face, move your arms with the wind, and hear the lapping of waves and croaks of frogs: A new audio tour of Strouds Run State Park encourages visitors to do what feels natural to be part of the landscape.
“Homing” is art made with the intention of emotionally attaching people to land so they are more motivated to protect it, according to the creators of the new immersive audio tour.
A collaborative effort by artists Katherine Moore and Kathryn Nusa Logan, the audio tour in partnership with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Arts in the Parks program and Appalachian Understories, a Rural Action social enterprise. The project received an Artist Opportunities grant from the Ohio Arts Council and a Funds For Artists grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
The tour is provided in three episodes, starting at the Bulldog Shelter House on Strouds Run Road and progressing to the Black Haw Trail and finally to Strouds Run Beach. Along the way, listeners hear Logan’s voice suggesting ways to engage with their surroundings: stretching, waving their arms or touching a fence post.
“They’re sort of these prompts that get people to use their bodies to explore sites,” Logan said.
Adding to Logan’s narration is ambient background music she composed on her keyboard, which urges listeners to move with the flow of the music.
“We really perceive it as an improvisational score,” Moore said.
Visitors can download the tour audio before visiting the park or access it using a QR code posted on a sign at the entrance to Black Haw Trail. Moore and Logan also bought MP3 players and headphones that can be borrowed from the Athens Public Library.
Moore and Logan created a similar project for Columbus Scioto Audubon Park in 2024, also funded by an Ohio Arts Council grant. The arts council recommended the duo to ODNR’s Arts in the Parks program to do a project for Strouds Run.
The pair met as graduate students at Ohio State University. Moore is a dance artist and choreographer; Logan is a multidisciplinary artist who enjoys combining dance with sound design. The pair has done several projects and residencies together throughout the country.
During the pandemic, Moore said, she and Logan sent conversational audio guides to each other, “feeding our artistic practice in a more traditional choreographic way.”
Moore and Logan are talking about creating a business together, “because we have been working together more and more frequently over the past few years,” Logan said.
They visited Strouds Run in the summer of 2024, to “get our initial ideas for the content and also for the general layout and flow of the project,” Moore said. They then spent the winter writing the text of tours.
They did their own research for “Homing,” exploring the history of the landscape. Moore said ODNR connected them to the park managers, as well as geologists and historians who work with ODNR.
“We had to consider a variety of things in terms of if people could move through the guides, in addition to other logistical hurdles, like cell service is not super reliable at Strouds Run,” Moore said.
The audio tour was officially installed June 3, and launched with a group tour, organized by Appalachian Understories. ODNR provided a photographer and videographer for the event. Moore said about 25 people attended.
ODNR provided free marketing and printed signs; Appalachian Understories provided information, context and marketing for the project.
Madison Donohue, the tourism manager for Appalachian Understories, said they wanted to support “Homing” because, “it was such a place-based program and really uplifted the narrative of the location, [we] thought it was a really good fit and aligned really well with the work that Appalachian Understories does.”
Donohue said Homing aligns with Appalachian Understories’ core pillars of providing a sense of place, benefiting human health and preserving cultural knowledge.
Making people feel connected to the land “can result in motivation and advocation for a place,” Donohue said.
Logan said in the summer of 2026, “Homing” will be displayed as a video and audio installation in a gallery at Urban Arts Space in Columbus.
Strouds Run State Park is open every day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
