Cherokee Street has always been a place where St. Louis artists stretch their imaginations. But at INDEX inside The Luminary, the walls are carrying something different. What lines the walls began as a conversation and research about genetics, trust, and the future of Black health that started long before the exhibition opened.
“A Blueprint of Us,” created through the Black Genome Project, is the result of five years of listening, learning and building with Black St. Louisans. It’s part art show, part community archive, and part invitation to rethink how science shows up in our lives.
For project coordinator Imani Myton, the exhibition is the culmination of work that began long before any artwork was hung. She joined the Black Genome Project during its earliest focus groups — helping coordinate surveys, showing up at farmer’s markets and Juneteenth events, and meeting people where they were.
“Sometimes folks came up to the table and they didn’t want to take the survey right away,” she said. “They wanted to talk. They wanted to share their stories. Slowing down and listening is what built the trust that made all of this possible.”
That trust is visible on the walls. Portraits, paintings, collages and sculptures sit alongside quotes, data visualizations and audio recordings of participants talking about genetics, family history and the fears and hopes they carry into medical spaces.
Myton said watching participants evolve into curators — and in some cases, artists — has been one of the project’s greatest joys.
“Seeing their work become and their stories as part of this exhibition, and seeing my own family members’ photos on the wall — that’s been really special,” Myton said.
The scientific backbone of the project comes from Brett Maricque, a geneticist at Washington University School of Medicine and Chelsey R. Carter, a St. Louis native and medical anthropologist at Yale University.
Maricque was quick to say that the science alone could never have carried the project.
From the beginning, he and Carter wanted to build something that didn’t treat Black communities as data sources — but as collaborators.
“We were asking ourselves: how do you honor the people who are part of a project?” Maricque said. “Not just extract data from them, but center their voices, their faces, their experiences.”
That question led them to bring in portrait photographer Adrian Octavious Walker, whose images anchor the exhibition. It also led them to rethink how genetics is explained — and who gets to shape that explanation.
Precision medicine, Maricque said, is supposed to bring the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. But the research behind it has overwhelmingly relied on genetic samples from people of European ancestry — leaving Black communities out of the data that will shape future healthcare.
“We’re talking about technologies that are becoming part of everyday life,” he said. “People hear about genetics through cancer care, cardiovascular health, or even ancestry tests. But most of the research has excluded the majority of people on the planet — including Black St. Louisans.”
That exclusion isn’t just historical. It’s present. And it’s tied to real harm.
“We have to acknowledge the past,” Maricque said. “We’re part of a scientific enterprise that has a bad reputation for good reason. And not just a hundred years ago — things are happening right now that create legitimate fear and mistrust.”
Instead of collecting DNA, the Black Genome Project asked people to share their perceptions, concerns and questions about genetics. They used anthropology and ethnography — not extraction — to build trust.
That trust eventually led to a group of community members who analyzed data with the research team, helped shape themes, and pushed the project toward art.
“They slowly nudged us deeper and deeper into the art world,” Maricque said. “We realized we could produce an exhibition inspired by our data — something that told the story through art.”
One moment crystallized the vision: organizing the exhibition around past, present and future.
“That was it,” he said. “The past holds the harms that shape people’s fears. The present holds the voices of the people we learned from. And the future is where genetics is headed — and where we want people to feel empowered, not excluded.”
Inside the Luminary, the exhibition offers multiple entry points. A collage might spark thoughts about family history. A painting influenced by sickle cell disease might remind someone of a relative. A sculpture might connect motherhood and medicine in unexpected ways.
“We wanted people to find their own way in,” Maricque said. “Maybe you don’t want to read a chart or a transcript. But you might see something that makes you think about your own DNA, your own family, your own health.”
The featured St. Louis artists who transformed five years of genetic and medical anthropology research into visual and sensory works include Adrian Octavius Walker, Damon Davis, Chanel Thomas, Jen Everett, Brock Seals, Simiya Sudduth, De’Joneiro Jones, Tiffany J. Sutton, Gino Austin, Theresa Williams, Shalené S. Smith, Reuben Reuel, and Cheeraz Gormon.
Myton said the response from participants has been emotional — not in tears, but in recognition.
“They walk in and say, ‘This is ours,’” she said. “They see their stories, their faces, their contributions. And they see it in a real gallery space — not something small or thrown together. That means something.”
On opening night, people reunited with others from focus groups they hadn’t seen in years. Some hadn’t seen Myton since she was pregnant with her toddler daughter.
“That camaraderie — that’s what made this project what it is,” she said.
As it comes to a close this weekend, what started out as a research project that expanded into a creative response became more than an exhibition.
“A Blueprint of Us” is a reminder that science doesn’t have to be distant, intimidating or extractive. It can be shaped by the people it claims to serve. It can be grounded by community. It can be accountable.
And it can be beautiful.
For Maricque, the hope is simple.
“I want people to feel comfortable engaging with genetics,” he said. “To feel like they have access to these technologies — and that they’re part of something, not being coerced into it.”
For Myton, the hope is personal.
“I want participants to feel ownership,” she said. “To know their stories were treated with respect. And to see themselves reflected in a space that honors who they are.”
In the Luminary, those hopes live side by side — in portraits, in paint, in sound, in data, and in the voices of Black St. Louisans who shaped the project from the ground up.
It’s not just an exhibition. It’s a blueprint. A blueprint of us.
The closing reception for “A Blueprint of Us” takes place at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 9 at INDEX at The Luminary, 2701 Cherokee St, St. Louis, MO 63118. Admission is free and open to the public. Note: While the closing party is tonight, the physical gallery remains open for its final day of public hours tomorrow, Saturday, October 10, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM.
For more information, visit www.blackgenomeproject.org