MAX'sThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The HeLa Project
We designed a multi-market exhibition to celebrate the woman behind the cells.
Client
Max
Markets
New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Baltimore
Line Of Business
Multicultural Marketing, Originals
Snapshot
Multi-Market Tour, Media Event, Premiere, Strategic Partnership
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the true story of one woman’s cells being used for tremendous medical advancements and staggering profits—but without her knowledge—a fascinating story of bioethics, ethnicity, and class. Our team created The HeLa Project (for HeLa cells) to promote the film and to support Max’s Multicultural Marketing’s mission to tell crucial stories and connect with communities.
For our initiative, we designed a multi-market exhibition to celebrate the woman behind the cells. We assembled an unprecedented collective of African American thought leaders to create works honoring Lacks, including the Lewis Long Gallery, Derrick Adams, Zoë Buckman, Doreen Gardner, Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich, Tomashi Jackson and Samuel Levi Jones, among others. The HeLa Project also included a recording of Motherless Children by Jazmine Sullivan and an original poem by Saul Williams, Mother of Resurrection.
At the center of the exhibition was Mother of Medicine, a portrait of Lacks by the extraordinary Kadir Nelson. Through our efforts, The HeLa Project won a Mosaic Media Image Award by the American Advertising Federation for Diversity Achievement. It was our honor to host The HeLa Project at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History & Culture in Baltimore; Center for Civil & Human Rights in Atlanta and at the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. Further, we held screenings and panel discussions at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including Spelman College and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, as well as Howard University in Washington, D.C.