Portrait of LaToya Ruby Frazier by Steve Benisty
LaToya Ruby Frazier
American visual artist
Award-winning American photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier combines photography, video, and performance art to focus on systemic problems such as racism, environmental issues and deindustrialization, as well as more individual issues including relationships, bodies, and space.
LaToya’s 2019 series The Last Cruz was displayed as a solo exhibition at the Wexner Centre for the Arts. This series focuses on themes of labour, class, and community in Lordstown, Ohio, where the General Motors plant closed in March 2019.
This left many workers with the difficult choice to transfer, resulting in families and communities being torn apart; LaToya captured this through photographs and audio-visual aids. The Last Cruz was published as a book in 2020 and shown at the California African American Museum in 2021.
In August 2020, LaToya photographed the family of Breonna Taylor, who was shot by police in her home, for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article about her life in Vanity Fair.