LaToya Ruby Frazier

     LaToya Ruby Frazier is a world-renowned photographer, artist, and activist. She grew up in the struggling steel mill town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Frazier started taking photos of her friends and family when she was 16. She soon attended the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania at age 17 where she earned her bachelor's of fine arts before going on to get her MFA in photography from Syracuse University. While in school she came across a photo, “American Gothic” by Gordon Parks. That photo propelled her into a career of activism. Frazier’s first body of work, entitled “The Notion of Family”, took her over 14 years to complete. It focused on life in Braddock Pennsylvania after the steel industry collapsed. She skillfully shines a light on the environmental racism and classism of this steel mill town. In this body of work, she includes a shot of her own family home as well as many self-portraits. Since then she has published many books all focused on mill and mining towns after their mines and mills have shut down and have been neglected. One thing that stands out about her body of work is the inclusion of aerial photos of the town she is photographing. These photos highlight the proximity of toxic materials to the residents of these towns. Frazier then takes photos of the families living in the area in black and white that shows their emotion and experience in their environment. 

    One of Frazier’s more famous bodies of work is “Flint is Family.” This piece shed light on the terrible conditions of Flint, Michigan’s water source. In this work, she focuses on women in the low-income community. This work was very powerful and was able to give a face to the often politicized crisis. 

Frazier has been the recipient of a number of awards over the years and has been named a fellow for Guggenheim, MacArthur, Sundance Institute, and TED talks. One of her more notable awards was the 2015 Infinity Award for Best Publication by the International Center of Photography for her first Book “The Notion of Family.”Today, LaToya Ruby Frazier is a professor of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can be found in museums all over the country including Seattle Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. among many others.
The photo above is a self-portrait Taken in her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. It is one of my personal favorites because the emotion on her face and the state of the room she is in say so much about what it was like to grow up in Braddock. All of her photos are a part of a series and I feel they are most powerful when viewed as a collection. She is an incredibly talented artist, but first and foremost, she is a powerful and influential activist.

Resources: 

https://latoyarubyfrazier.com/about/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBFC-RtfTfg&t=87s

https://www.theartshesees.com/blog/photographer-latoya-ruby-frazier-b-1982-the-notion-of-family