The Black Genome Project: Launch and Celebration
The Black Genome Project: Launch and Celebration
Gathering
In-Person
Saturday, July 23rd, 2022
6 - 8 pm
RSVP here.
Join us on Saturday, July 23rd from 6 to 8 PM at The Luminary to celebrate the beginning of The Black Genome Project. Led by Brett Maricque and Chelsey R. Carter, The Black Genome Project forefronts community participation and data research, medical anthropology, and artistic method to ask:
What do our genetics say about our health? And what’s next for personalized medicine?
The Luminary will host a night filled with music and gathering, offering space for the community to ask the lead researchers of The Black Genome Project questions about their work and offer insight into how they want their data to be collected and represented.
Learn more about The Black Genome Project and The Luminary’s Partnership:
Although we’ve learned a lot about the human genome in the 21st century, Black communities have been largely left out of the research process and the conversations about it. Without building a community-centered approach to genetics research, we are likely to see unfair delivery of genetics-based personalized medicine, worsened health disparities, and poor health outcomes.
The Black Genome Project desires to create an equitable platform to understand how genetic research is impacting Black communities in St. Louis. We are asking how Black communities value their genomes and genetic data? And how do Black communities want their genetic information used? By answering these questions, we hope to co-create a space for Black people to understand genetic diversity and evaluate, learn, and take ownership over the future of genomic medicine.
We believe that human beings are more important than their data.
We are privileged to join forces with Adrian Octavius Walker on this project, as he will provide his insight and storytelling talent to visualize our data research through photography. Adrian is a master at displaying humanity through photographs and his talent will enable us to put our ethics into action.
Lastly, and most importantly, this work belongs to the people.
Brett Maricque is an Assistant Professor of Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and a faculty member at the McDonnell Genome Institute. Prior to joining the WUSM faculty, he was the Coordinating Manager of Young Adult Services at NYC Health + Hospital Correctional Health Services, where he focused on providing mental and physical health services to adolescents and young adults that were incarcerated. Brett has taught college-level human genetics and genomics courses in the Illinois and New York state prison systems.
Chelsey R. Carter is an Assistant Professor at Yale School of Public Health with an affiliation in the Department of Anthropology. She is a native of St. Louis and a Black feminist anthropologist with specializations in medicine, public health, and race. Her research broadly examines the relationship(s) between anti-Black racism, class, gender, and chronic illness in the United States. Chelsey has taught cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, and ethnography at UMSL, Webster University, WashU, and WashU’s Prison Education Project. You can learn more about Chelsey’s work, writing and activism at www.crcarter.com.
Adrian Octavius Walker is a mixed media artist/photographer whose work seeks to expand the canon surrounding the nuances of Black life through tenderness and grit. His fascination with the tangible is the driving force to expand his visual language through various materials. Walker’s passion lies in using his practice to platform critical discourse around the imagination in black nostalgia. His work casts questions that inspire the viewer to investigate their own biases and opportunities for community engagement. Adrian’s approach to both still photography and sculpture is rooted in his commitment to archiving Black stories for the future. Ultimately, Adrian Octavius Walker uses his practice as a space to discover, document, and reminisce about the cultural impact of Black life in America. You can learn more about Adrian’s work at www.adrianowalker.com.
The Luminary, an independent arts nonprofit dedicated to creative practitioners who contend with the pressing issues of our time, serves as a host and partner for The Black Genome Project.