MIAMI, FLA.- The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University presents LaToya Ruby Frazier: Flint is Family, January 30-April 14. The opening reception is Wednesday, Jan. 30 (5:00-7:00 p.m.), free and open to the public. The photographer and MacArthur Fellow, LaToya Ruby Frazier, explores the Flint water crisis and the tragic and heartbreaking effects on families and residents. As a witness to their daily lives, Frazier documented how they endured one of the most devastating man-made ecological crises in U.S. history. For five months, she lived with women from three generations the poet Shea Cobb, Sheas mother, Renée Cobb, and her daughter, Zion using the camera as a weapon and agent for social change.
After the water supply in Flint switched water sources, residents began noticing rashes on their skin and their hair was falling out. There was an outbreak of Legionnaires disease, and twelve people died. One residents water tested twenty-seven times the federal limit for lead, and lead was discovered in the water fountains at three public schools. It would take over seventeen months for the state of Michigan, to switch the water back. By this time, irreparable damage occurred to thousands of people. Frazier captured close family moments as well as the daily efforts the family faced without access to clean water. Simple tasks, like cooking a meal, were not possible. Flint residents are still forced to drink, cook with and even bathe in bottled water, while still paying some of the highest water bills in the country for their poisoned water.
The original photo documentary by Frazier was featured in the 2016 expose by ELLE Magazine. The voices of the resilient families who suffered and thrived through the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in U.S. history narrate this compelling video. At the Frost Art Museum FIU, this exhibition was organized by Maryanna Ramirez, Manager of Strategic Initiatives. This show is part of the museums Martin Luther King, Jr. exhibition series, which addresses issues of race, diversity, social justice, civil rights, and humanity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue and to enrich the community with new perspectives.
Frazier works in photography, video and performance to build visual archives that address industrialism, revitalization of the rustbelt, environmental justice, healthcare inequity, family and communal history. Her many awards and honors include: the International Center for Photography Infinity Award, fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's MacArthur Fellows Program, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. In 2015, the Allegheny County Council (Pennsylvania, USA) awarded Frazier a Proclamation thanking her for "examining race, class, gender and citizenship in our society and inspiring a vision for the future that offers inclusion, equity and justice to all." At the Frost, this show is sponsored by: the African & African Diaspora Studies Program/College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts, the FIU Alumni Association, the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, and Multicultural Programs and Services.
The museum will present a Curators Tour Tuesday, Feb. 12 (1:00 p.m.), and a Flint Water Crisis Panel Discussion Thursday, Feb. 21 (4:00 p.m.)