LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work as a visual artist deftly blends tales of personal experience with social reportage. She tries to impart this sense of balance to her students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Frazier is an associate professor of photography.
“It is essential to encourage students to speak from the heart about where they are from and how they see themselves in society—with their family, community, nation and the world,” says Frazier. “As citizens and human beings, we all have to start from somewhere. We don’t control the situations we are born into, so it’–s important to embrace where you begin.”
Frazier rose to prominence in the photo world because of her longtime documentation of Braddock Pennsylvania, her hometown; this led to several exhibitions and her 2014 book The Notion of Family, which won an International Center for Photography Infinity Award. Since then her projects have often spotlighted victims of socioeconomic upheaval, including uprooted auto workers in Lordstown, Ohio, community member impacted by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and displaced former coal miners in Belgium.
While her projects encompass video and performance work, Frazier’s still photography reflects her trademark black-and-white style. “In order to challenge yourself and to create a space for your photographs, it is important to find your own distinct voice and vision,” she says. “Be in a relationship with your photographs; follow where they lead you.”
She advises new photographers to consider their work a matter of social contribution as well as personal expression. “A student should not simply take pictures; You should make photographs that have something to say about the world and what you imagine a future world would be if it were left better off than where you started when you were born into it,” she says. “Be vigilant about your own curiosity, and push yourself outside of your comfort zone in order to make strong photographic bodies of work.”
By Jack Crager. To read more of the Fall 2019 issue of PDNedu magazine, check out the digital edition.
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