Launched on the Fourth of July (America’s Independence Day), the film depicts the present-day descendants of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Though America’s founders were a group of 56 white men, the film reveals that their descendants span all ages, genders and ethnicities—including African American, Hispanic, Native American, East Asian and Filipino.

As they recite excerpts of the Declaration of Independence, we gradually reveal that they have been arranged in a modern recreation of John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, an iconic painting depicting the declaration’s original signers.

The film closes by revealing that the group’s ancestral link to America’s founders and displaying the full recreation of Trumbull’s painting. The film intends to not only create a portrait of America’s present-day diversity but also illustrate that diversity is an inextricable part of who we are as Americans.

In 1776, America’s founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, a statement of equality and unity. But today, America is perhaps as divided as it’s ever been.

For the Fourth of July (America’s Independence Day), we used Ancestry to find the descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Though a group of 56 white men, their descendents were of strikingly diverse ethnicities, including many groups who have not always been treated with equality in America.

The work came in the wake of Trump’s election and a subsequent rise of white nationalism. At a time of racial animus, we used Ancestry to show that America belongs to all of us.

The music track is a very simple composition that draws inspiration from early American folk songs popular during the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

However, the melody has been stripped back to its most essential components and is delivered as a hum from a voice that makes the ethnic origin of the singer—and even whether it is one singer or many—unclear.

As the track builds in tandem with the voices of the descendants reciting the famous words, the hum is joined by a droning bass and then a second “female” hum that works in harmony.

The effect we were attempting to create was a sense of the entire country coming together as one, in a new, richer reinterpretation of the history—both political and musical—that the country was founded upon.