LaToya Ruby Frazier:
LaToya Ruby Frazier is an American artist and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In her work she explores industrialism, environmental justice, access to healthcare, access to clean water, workers’ and human rights, family and communal history. She is known for her book ‘The Notion of Family’.
Context:
In The Notion of Family (her first book), LaToya Ruby Frazier offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as embodied by Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier’s hometown. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political–an intervention in the histories and narratives of the region that are dominated by stories of Andrew Carnegie and Pittsburgh’s industrial past, but largely ignore those of black families and the working classes. Frazier has set her story of three generations–her Grandma Ruby, her mother and herself–against larger questions of civic belonging and responsibility. The work also documents the demise of Braddock’s only hospital, reinforcing the idea that the history of a place is frequently written on the body as well as the landscape.
Moodboard:
“… photography could liberate a new way of seeing and a radical consciousness”
“At times the text functions as an image and the photograph becomes the visual language that creates tension.”
Analysis:
I chose to look at this image in particular because I think it’s quite powerful. It’s a black and white image which allows the viewer to focus on the subject and it consists of LaToya and her mother. In the image we see that her mother is facing the right side and we can only see her side profile and eyes that are shut. Behind her, there is LaToya looking straight at the camera/ viewer; her facial features line up nicely with her mother’s which makes it look like they are connected.