One of the nation’s most acclaimed photographers, LaToya Ruby Frazier depicts the unsettling reality of today’s America: post-industrial cities riven by poverty, racism, healthcare inequality, and environmental toxicity. By featuring voices and perspectives traditionally erased from the American narrative, Frazier not only captures our cultural blind spots, she teaches us how art is a powerful tool for social transformation.

In 2016, Frazier spent five months in Flint, Michigan, with three generations of women dealing with the impact of contaminated water. She also took photos of the family of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky. Frazier is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Seattle Art Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and been included in the Whitney Biennial.

Frazier’s work is also featured in the exhibition “Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art,” which will be travelling to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in 2022. Frazier will be in conversation with Manetti Shrem Museum scholar-in-residence Sampada Aranke (PhD, performance studies, ‘13).

Organized by the Manetti Shrem Museum and co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History’s Art Studio Visiting Artist Lecture Series.