Olivia Snead, Digerati Girls Co-Founder, Honored as one of 100 Notable Detroiters by i.Detroit; Youngest Awardee.

Notable Detroiters to star in I.Detroit: a Human Atlas of An America City

Left to right, Detroit Police Officer Gregory Matthews, Marcus Lyon, Camila Pastorelli and First Assistant Chief of Police Lashinda Stair gather information for the I.Detroit project. (Photo: Joe Briggs-Price)

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If you wanted to tell the story of Detroit — one of our country’s compelling, resilient cities — how would you go about it?

If you’re Marcus Lyon, acclaimed photographer and artist, who is doing so in a new project called I.Detroit: A Human Atlas of an American City, it has involved spending time with 100 people here from all ages, races and backgrounds and listening to their stories. He’s blending photos, interviews he did with each and a little science (each person profiled also had DNA genetic mapping) along with their stories. When done, it will be a living mosaic that portray the city’s past, present and future.

As each talks about their stories of perseverance and overcoming odds, it will paint a portrait of the city. I.Detroit will include an extensive coffee table-type book and an exhibit in Detroit in 2020.

Lyon’s idea was a few years in the making. He did a similar project about Brazil featuring 104 people. His Detroit project got a boost when he met Deloitte Michigan managing partner Mark Davidoff at a 2017 Leaders Quest conference in Bradford, England.

Davidoff connected Lyon, who lives in England and has family in northern Michigan, with folks including Kresge Foundation. They commissioned the I.Detroit project.ADVERTISING

A committee of local leaders including Davidoff sifted through hundreds nominated last summer before they selected the final 100 people to be involved. Kirk Mayes (Forgotten Harvest),  Monica Lewis-Patrick (human rights activist), John George (Blight Busters), artist Charles McGee and Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley are some of the people in I.Detroit.

“Marcus described the project he hoped to do in Detroit which seemed like an  interesting idea,” said Davidoff. “But when I saw his Somos Brasil book, I realized that this was a wholly unique opportunity to tell the story of Detroit in the voice of Detroit, those who work to move social progress forward every day.”

Lyon has long been fascinated by Detroit and wanted to focus on one American city.

“Detroit  is at the epicenter of many of the most challenging urban issues of our time,”’ said Lyon. “I.Detroit is bringing together individuals to explore what we are capable of when we reimagine our potential to create a better future. Despite the challenges, this group of remarkable change-makers represents those who are facing up to the most demanding educational, environmental, economic and societal concerns of our day and rewriting our future.”

“Grappling with our past with all its racial and historic complexities and complications is essential for us both as a nation and as a community,” added Wendy Lewis Jackson, managing director of Detroit Programs for Kresge. “By combining genetics, personal testimony and photography, Marcus Lyon gives us a unique vantage point, an opportunity to better understand where we come from as a community through 100 individuals who’ve opened themselves up to this project.”

Lashinda T. Stair, 1st assistant chief at the Detroit Police Department, is among those featured. The busy married mom of two teens (one is in high school, the other a student at Central Michigan University) is completing her MBA at Wayne State’s Mike Ilitch School of Business and has degrees from Eastern Michigan University and WSU.

Marcus Lyon and First Assistant Chief of Police Lashinda Stair. (Photo: Joe Briggs-Price)

“When I think about where I come from, I think about very strong women,” she said in her vignette, which I got to see in a sneak peek. “I think about my grandmother who worked really hard to help my grandfather to take care of six children in the city of Chicago, when there wasn’t much money to go around. I think about my mom having me at the age of 15 and us moving from Chicago to Detroit, when I was 5, to what she thought would be a better life for us.”

Stair talked about her family’s struggles and tough times, including the death of her brother, who was shot to death; and her mom, Shirley Jean Gordon White, who found out she had cancer around that time. Her mom passed in 2008 at the age of 50.

“My mom is my No. 1 role model, and it is because of her that I try my best to be the best person that I can be, which includes helping others whenever I can,” Stair said. “I want to  share my story and reinforce the fact that where you start doesn’t have to be where you end up.”

That message of hope is what I.Detroit champions are banking will be a takeaway for folks when they see it next year.

“I just know this project is going to make people stop and reflect on the art on the exhibit walls, on their own lives, and on the way our stories interweave in this community we call home,” said Jackson.

For more: facebook.com/ahumanatlasofdetroit

Contact Carol Cain: 313-222-6732 or clcain@cbs.com. She is senior producer/host of “Michigan Matters,” which airs 11:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS 62. See Denise Ilitch, Rod Alberts and L. Brooks Patterson on this Sunday’s show.