Over the next year, seven cities across Kentucky will play host to a new traveling Smithsonian exhibit.

It's based on an award winning exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian Americans, dives deeper into national imagery, symbols and stories, and how they influence us today.

Our Laura Rogers is back to take us to the debut site in Paducah for this week's look at arts and culture we call tapestry.

It's a new exhibit.

We're one of the first four states to host it.

It's a way to bring the Smithsonian to the people.

Kentucky Humanities has partnered with Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street since 2004.

They're always a strong partner.

They always find venues that really know how to host the exhibition well.

Those venues include the River Discovery Center and Paducah, where we joined them on installation day.

We not only focus on the river, but all things kind of Paducah and the history of where we've been and where we're going.

The rivers have really led a lot of Americans along the journey throughout history.

The exhibition is called Americans and Explorers.

Much of that journey from the Trail of Tears is something that we discuss quite a bit in our educational programs, in conjunction with the wall to wall murals that are right outside our front door to the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn.

A decisive yet temporary Native American victory, and how after that event, the United States really saw American Indians in a different way and were depicted in a different way.

Tiffany Chang is a Kentucky native who works as a project director with Museum on Main Street.

Getting people to take a second look at stories that you may be very familiar with, and you think you know everything about it.

This is asking you to take a second look and find some things that you didn't know before.

This is the third time the River Discovery Center has hosted a Smithsonian exhibition.

It is such a great opportunity for Paducah.

Lindsey Ramsey says the center has educational programs for school groups that will complement what they learned from Americans.

Something that will happen in every community.

This is just the starting point.

When it comes to the town.

They then do their own local storytelling, their own program.

Chang says it's a continuation of work for the host sites on the tour.

A mix of museums and libraries, they're already doing the storytelling.

They're already preserving these stories and this history that's so important.

So it's going to be a great added bonus to our already existing exhibit.

It's expected to draw more foot traffic over the next month from surrounding communities across western Kentucky, southern Illinois and eastern Missouri.

We just want to give everyone access to this who can't get to D.C., and we want to bring the Smithsonian to their town so they can celebrate the exhibit as well.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you again, Laura.

Americans will be on display in Paducah through September the 27th, before it moves to the Millersburg County Public Library.

It'll make five more stops in Kentucky through July of next year.

Admission is free.