Visual artist, photographer and advocate LaToya Ruby Frazier will discuss Art as Transformation: Using Photography for Social Change, in an illustrated virtual presentation and Q&A, 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures as part of the UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Race to Justice series.
Frazier, a MacArthur Fellow, depicts the unsettling reality of today’s America: post-industrial cities riven by poverty, racism, healthcare inequality and environmental toxicity. Her groundbreaking series “Flint is Family” was named one of the 25 Most Influential Works of American Protest Art Since World War II by The New York Times.
In her talk, Frazier discusses how she uses photography to fight injustice and create a more representative self-portrait.
Drawing from her book “The Notion of Family,” as well as from works of art by Frederick Douglass, August Sander, Julia Margaret Cameron and Langston Hughes, Frazier relates her conscious approach to photography; opens up more authentic ways to talk about family, inheritance and place; and celebrates the inspirational, transformative power of images.
The presentation will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Kim Yasuda, chair of the UC Santa Barbara Department of Art. Ticket holders will be able to replay the event for one week.
Tickets to Frazier’s talk are $10 for the general public, and free for UCSB students (registration required). For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures, 805-893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Treating art as activism, Frazier’s body of work includes “The Last Cruze,” which documents the devastating effects of a GM plant closure in Lordstown, Ohio; a chronicle of the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, for Elle Magazine; and an aerial photography series depicting Memphis, Baltimore and Chicago in The Atlantic’s Martin Luther King issue.
For “Flint is Family,” “Frazier spent five months with a family encompassing three generations of women, chronicling daily life at the heart of a man-made ecological disaster. The project was a natural extension of her already well-established commitment to social justice,” The New York Times reported, noting Frazier donated the proceeds from her exhibition to help aid the people in Vehicle City.
Frazier was recently selected as one of nine Storytelling Fellows for “National Geographic,” where she will complete a year-long project titled Living with Lupus Under COVID-19 in America. In it, Frazier will use a personal lens to explore the intersection of racial justice, environmental racism, and the unequal access to medical care in America, as the country faces one of the largest public health crises in modern history.
Frazier was chosen by “Ebony” magazine as one of its 100+ Most Powerful Women of All Time. Her work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally, with solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, Seattle Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
Frazier holds a BFA in applied media arts from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in art photography from Syracuse University. She is associate professor, photography, at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has previously held academic and curatorial positions at Yale University School of Art, Rutgers University, and Syracuse University.