Projects

Buried beneath the concrete of our modern streets lies a history of our city that goes back to the beginning of time.

Drilling down below the surface into the history of Detroit’s near east side — generation by generation, century by century, eon after eon — produces what geologists call a “core sample.”

Using images and music, history and science, facts and imagination, Core 375 shows us the many layers and legacies that brought us to where we are today — all compressed into a small, vivid slice, a suite of images, words and sound.

Before the asphalt artery of I-375 paved over large sections of the near east side, the people who walked these paths felt the vital human heartbeat of Black Bottom and Hastings Street. Before that, there were the ribbon farms of the French, who gave Detroit its name. Before that, there was the deep spiritual connection of the Anishinaabe people to hills and rivers that none of us can see today. And before that… mastodons, mammoths, and miles and miles of ice.

Walk with us, and envision the stories, art and culture that shaped our small piece of the world over the past three million years. Examine the core sample that reminds us that Detroit is always, endlessly building on its past — and becoming its future.

Titled Perseverance of the Human Spirit, this project is a collaborative effort between Temple Emanu-El, St. John Armenian Church, and Hartford Memorial Baptist Church. Each congregation will rely on its talent and leadership to share the stories and artistic outputs created by its community. Additional collaborators include the Detroit Opera Resident Artists, the Zekelman Holocaust Center, as well as subject-matter experts from the Western Wayne County NAACP, the Detroit Center for Civil Discourse and the University of Michigan.