Welcome to The Truth in His Art, your source of conversations at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. I am your host, Rob Lee. And today, I am thrilled to be joined by a visionary artist whose work intersects social justice, cultural change, and the American experience. Their practice blends photography, video, performance, and installation to amplify the voices of individuals and communities, tackling issues like environmental justice, workers' rights, and access to health care. My guest is recognized as one of Time 100's most influential people of 2024.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Their work includes the MoMA survey, monuments of solidarity, and the current installation, More Than Conquerors, at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Please welcome Latoya Ruby Frazier. Welcome to the podcast.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Hi, Rob. It's so nice to be here with you today. Thanks for having me on.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Thank you for for coming on. Thank you for for being here, and thank you for all that you do. And, as I'm one to do, we we get a little weird sometimes. We have some quirks in this podcast. And because I'm I have the benefit of visual, I'm gonna thank you, right, for wearing your glasses.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You know? Some people put into contacts, and they're like, oh, yeah. You know, I like to have my eyes. Like, no. No.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:No. Put your glasses on. You're wearing yours, so shout out to you.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Yes. Always wear the glasses.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And, as someone to do, I like to, like, start off with sort of that level set and, you know, again, doing the research and and prepping, you know, really incredible background and just a dope legacy, but I want to give you the opportunity to to introduce yourself. I I find, like, a lot of times we get these online bios, and then there's, like, wow. What's what's what's the line?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Which one are we gonna go with? Or there's something that's really important to the person that's often left out. Like, you find, like, hey, man, you know I played guitar for, like, 25 years. I'm like, I just thought you were a painter. So, if you will, could you introduce yourself in your own words?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Yeah. So, I'm Latoya Ruby Frazier. I'm an artist, a photographer, an advocate, who uses photographs to make social commentary about what's happening in this country, and our relationships to class, and in particular, the American social caste system, and creating works collaboratively with everyday working Americans to really address what I think is a misunderstanding about who the working class is in this country and how diverse and beautiful and powerful it actually is, regardless of what we see in mass media and in politics. So I like to try to counter, dominant narratives in mass media narratives by allowing the real narratives by allowing
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:the real people
LaToya Ruby Frazier:who are on the ground and in the trenches to speak for themselves, so that's something that I've enjoyed doing for the past 25 years, and when I'm not doing that, something people don't know about me is, my first love was basketball, so I'm an avid sports enthusiast. So, ESPN is on 247 in my house while I'm in the studio working, And also, I play the guitar and the viola.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Wow. Wow. I I didn't get either of the instruments initially, and then I didn't think, like, basketball would be in there. I was like, there's a sport in there somewhere. I'm not sure what it was.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I was like, track? No. No. No. No.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:No. Hoops. Hoops. Yeah. And and and hearing that your your your introduction, and thank you again for that, it is, you know, the notion of having folks be able to speak for themselves and sort of counter and challenge, like, narratives that are out there that's that's baked into the DNA of of this podcast and, you know, now over 800 episodes at this point.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:And it came from this sort of desire of, I'm from here. I travel, and I hear how folks talk about the city. And I find often it's not the streets. It's not the sidewalks. It's not the lakes.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:It's it's it's sort of the people, but they'll say, oh, it's the city. And I wanted to counter that through through storytelling. And I kinda I'm taking from, like, looking over your background and your career, you've dedicated a lot of your work around, like, storytelling. So going back to the beginning, if you will, earlier, was there a moment in your youth that really sparked that interest in storytelling?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I'll point out 2 things today. I think coming from a historic still town, right, I'm from Braddock, Pennsylvania. It's a suburb of Pittsburgh. Right? It is an industrial suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:A lot of people mistaken it as some inner city steel town, and it's not. It's still very historic. It's where Andrew Carnegie's first mill, the Edgar Thompson Steel Works, was created in the late 1800, and it still operates today. It's simply downsized, so I'm literally from a Steeltown, that still produces steel for this country and around the world. And so as a little girl growing up with all of this history of Andrew Carnegie surrounding me all the time, living on the same block as a steel mill, so it literally, like, towered over my home where my grandmother was raising me.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so as a little girl, I became very curious early on, just with my own imagination and dreams about what our society and culture would be like if we built monuments for the working class and for everyday Americans instead of CEOs and industrial capitalists and politicians? Like, what would our social fabric be like if we honored people from the bottom up? Because the town the part of town that I'm from is called the bottom. So for me, it has always been about creating art from the bottom up for everyday Americans. And then the the other part, say your question again so I can make sure I answer the second part.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah. And and thank you. That that's that's definitely is there a moment, I guess, from from your youth that, you know, kinda sparked that interest in storytelling? Yeah.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So this part wouldn't be from my youth. The part I wanna share happened, much later in young adulthood when I went into the Andrew Carnegie, free library in Braddock. Yeah. And, you know, my family, my grandmother's generation, and my mother's generation were never allowed past those call stacks on the 1st floor due to segregation, so they never really went into that library. And it was my my high school year.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I think my cousin had a party in the library, and that was my first time in there. And then fast forward, I would go in there in 2015, doing some research and that's when I had got a tour of that library and realized, like, this was an incredible historic place. It had the place for the workers to crawl through the tunnels to get changed so they wouldn't take all the stuff from the mill home to their families. It had bowling alleys, theaters, a basketball court, like, all of these amenities, a swimming pool, and my grandmother's generation would have been in the thirties and forties, my mother's in the fifties and sixties, and mine in the eighties and nineties, and we were never allowed in there. So the experience of getting a tour of the library in the town that I'm born and raised from by outsider white women who moved there, it was an interesting, complicated conundrum to feel what that felt like, right, getting a tour from a free public library where we should have been able to have access to it.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so of course that begged me to buy a book about my hometown, published by Arcadia Publishing. So for all of you listening in America, in every state, in every small town, there's a publishing company called Arcadia Publishing that puts out these books about towns across the United States. And I grabbed that book and I took it back to my studio, and by the time I got to the last page this book was produced in like 2008 or 10. Yeah. By the time I got to the last page, I realized that all African Americans born and raised from Braddock were omitted from this book.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And when you see oversights like that, that's when it becomes real. And so I knew when I encountered that history book, after being in that library and understanding the erasure and the segregation and then the audacity to know the people who published, edited, and contributed to the book, who would've known my family, who goes back to the early 1900s there. Like, that's when it becomes real for you, as a citizen and as an American understanding that these histories, these grand narratives have to be dissected and they have to be reframed because we've been omitted, and if we're not omitted, we've been, spoken about in such a criminalized, inhumane way, as if we are not contributors to the greatness of this nation. Like, the nation is great because of black Americans. So to see that in the 21st century, that I'm a young black artist and a researcher, seeing a historic book about my town come out and not one black person born and raised from there was in it.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Oh, no. It was time. It was time to start to create artwork that monumentalizes everyday black working class Americans' voices because we deserve that. This country is not what it is without the labor of black people. So it is so important that we dissect racial capitalism and what our black free labor has contributed to this nation while we still see ourselves erased from the significance of this country's history.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Talk, talk, talk. I thank you. That's it's important. Like, you know, as I don't know. I'm a data analyst in my in my day job, and I I see just something as simple as, you know, you touched on sports, you know, as far as being an interest earlier.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I'd seen seen certain things, simple things of, like, certain sports factoids changed or omitted and so on, and it looks glaring. And I'm like, that's, you know, trivial. But I'm like, this person's family is not in this story. This history of these folks are not covered. How did we get from here to there?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I I need to look at other sources. I need to look at other places for this sort of research. And, you know, someone like you are gonna, like, look in that direction. I will I will look in that direction, but a lot of folks won't. That speaks to the importance of the working of the the the sort of drive and interest that you have or even the, you know, the the archival nature of something like like this.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You know, I look at some of the folks that I've, like, I've interviewed in this 5 years, and I'm like, okay. Someone's gonna say that that person this person's story doesn't matter. You know, that their sort of contribution to the canon, like, so one person, that I had, and it's it's unrelated as an aside, but I think it speaks to sort of stories mattering and stories from people that look like us that matter. I had, this gentleman, Max Myrick, and he's, you know, responsible for so many, like, sort of black format radio stations launching, you know, over the course of 40 years. And I was like, dude, can I talk?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You just retired, like, 2 weeks ago. I was like, can I talk to you? Can I, like, pick your brain? And he was like, yeah, sure. He's like, nobody usually asks me about these things.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:And I feel like those types of stories can easily get lost, and it's just, oh, this was here one day. We just we always had this, or this person didn't make this sort of contribution, and that's lost to time.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Right. Right. Well, thank you for doing the work, Rob. I mean, it's so important to tell the stories and to archive them and then to make it available and accessible to the general public. It's kinda like what it feels like when I listen to Studs Terkel and all the people that he's interviewed, so, you know, it's clear you're doing something like that for us, so thank you for making this contribution as well.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Thank you. I appreciate it. And I mean, it parallels to comparison. I got to thank you. So there's one more question I want to hit before I move into sort of the main entree, if you will.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:And and I'm curious about this in that that way, like, of as an artist, as a researcher, I I find, like, artists will talk about they had a a period, maybe it was a couple years, maybe it was one seminal experience where they realized who they were as an artist, like, how they wanted to pursue things, how they wanted to work, what were their sort of, nonnegotiables, if you will. And I've been a podcaster for 16 years, but, you know, the first ten, I can't say I knew who I was until I got to, like, this stage and realizing, like, this was important. So in the last 5 years, it's been transformative in that way of really realizing who I am. So is there, like, a point where, you know, you really got to this the stage of this is who I am, this is my voice as as an artist, as a researcher, as a contributor to sort of this American history, these American stories being told?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:It it slowly started to reveal itself. Like, I definitely didn't know that when I started. Right? So when I made the notion of family, I didn't know that. I think it started to crystallize for me, at 2 different periods, and I'll just touch on them quickly.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:1 was in 2010 and 11 when I was a participant in the Whitney Museum's Whitney Independent Study Program, where, during that time of my studies where you're learning a lot of economic theory, Braddock was used as a poster child for Rust Belt revitalization, And suddenly, I'm walking in New York City going, you know, to my program, which was in Chinatown, and seeing all these billboards of these exported images of Braddock in New York City. And it was a really painful moment because what I was seeing was, you know, the reality of our situation is, we lost all our jobs because the steel industry shrank, black workers were not afforded the opportunities to work on white collar jobs or be leaders in their labor union, then of course adding on to that insult was the removal of our community hospital on top of all these EPA violations, which, you know, the USS Steel Corporation releases a lot of toxins, into our environment. So this is a real, you know, systemic way and environmental way of killing people off. Yeah. And so it hurt to see these exported images about beautifying Braddock without really dealing with the underlying problem of institutional, structural, and environmental racism, and then you're seeing these beautiful hip chic images that were part of a Levi and Wyden and Kennedy ad campaign to make BRADOC the poster child of what they were calling the new frontier for urban pioneers to come forth and reclaim Braddock.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:You can come and get a studio for $1, you know, you can move to Braddock and get a building and a home for free or for $1. So, like, that was a real moment where it was like, this cannot stand. And I thought I was minding my business, and I'm showing up to participate in the program, and the faculty started calling me out, like, you know, some of my greatest heroes, like Martha Rosler and Coco Fusco, like, they started pulling me under their wing, and they're like, you have to respond. Like, what are you going to do about this? So that was a really, critical moment where I was like, okay, I'm being called to something bigger than me, and I think it crystallized 7 years later in Belgium in the coal mining region called the Borynage, where a museum called the MAAC Museum, the MAACS, which is located in a former colliery, a coal mine site.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:They invited me to their village because it looks almost like a sister to Braddock, and they wanted me to come, so they showed my body of work, the notion of family, to all the coal miners and their families, and they came forward to do an artist residency with me. Upon my arrival, the coal miners, the men of the families, they said to me, why do you care about us and why are you here? You're a woman, you're an American, and you're black. Why do you care about us? And in that gripe and question that they had, which most people would have shuddered and been afraid of, you know, I was very I I welcomed it, and and that was the moment when I realized, oh, I've been called to stand in the gap between working class and creative class sectors.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:That is what my practice is. It creates a bridge and a pathway and a connection, because many of us are descendants of working class people who worked in coal mines and steel and auto industries. Right? The thing that made this country what it was, like, we are descendants of that, but because those jobs have been taken away, many of us end up turning to creative arts, and for me, all the men and women who, like, if you think about my work, The Last Cruise, and the way that they're in the stamping plant taking coils of steel and forming, you know, the the Chevrolet Cruze car. They're doing that with their hands and it's stamping on it.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Right? So to me, they're kind of artisans themselves, and it's why you see me do such a deep dive into showing people who are in labor unions that also have creative practices outside of, you know, their workplace and the workforce and the labor union. So, you know, I think it's important that an artist like me comes along, you know, in the container of a black woman with an Afro, you know, daring to go out into a world, you know, with all my, James Baldwin understanding to try to, like, unite the art world, the working class, and the general public.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:It's very important stuff, and one one comment I'll I'll make before I move into this next question. I relate so much where this this notion that you were touching on of, you know, being removed from someone that's in this sort of, like, labor class. Like, I look at my uncles, my dad, all of them, like, veterans. All of them worked on a railroad at a period. And me, I'm sitting here with a microphone in front of me.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I'm like, I need to I need to pick up a hammer or something. I don't know. But it's also sort of that that perspective was was in the household as as well. And even, like, you know, folks Curry and all that stuff. Like, I look in my my it's funny.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:As I look in my closet in my my studio, I have, like, some of my gear in there, and my grandmother, my my dad's mom, she took elements from one of his bags, from his job building railroad and one of the elements from his, his duffle bag from Vietnam, and she sewed it together, and that's one of my art bags. Wow. Right. So it's there. You know what I mean?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Right. The the history is right there in the fabric and the way yeah. And what it symbolizes. That's right.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Absolutely. So I wanna talk a bit about, more than conquerors. So, you know, I'm I'm seeing, like, it's it centers on Baltimore health, the health care the health workers, the community of Baltimore health workers during the COVID 19 vaccine rollout. Like, let's let's talk about that a bit and sort of what was that initial, like, connection and initial interest, like, just the genesis of sort of the story of the work?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Yeah. So, this is, 9 years in the making, really. Back in 2015, so I gotta do a shout out real quick to your arts organization in Baltimore called The Contemporary and and another shout out to the Baltimore School of the Arts. Back in 2015, I was brought in on a panel with, doctor Lisa Cooper, who works at Johns Hopkins, and is the founder of the, Health Equity Center at Hopkins. So doctor Cooper and I were brought on a panel and we were asked how if if a doctor and a scientist and artist could work together, do you think it would be possible to make art that's useful to society?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so fast forward to More Than Conquerors, you know, that the seed was planted then in 2015, and this exhibition, this work this 21st Century Workers' Monument called More Than Conquerors, a monument for community health workers in Baltimore, Maryland is the answer to that question.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:That's that's great. And I definitely will mention a few things. Like, you you mentioned a few of these these sort of institutions that are, you know, BSA, Hopkins, having those those big connections, as far as, you know, Hopkins being one of the largest employees that is touching so many different different people there. So, you know, in 10 years, you know, almost 10 years at this point, that that is wild. And initially, you you mentioned it.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I was like, are you about to do a bit? Is it a joke that you're about to do? Like, you know, an artist, a doctor, you know, a scientist, all
LaToya Ruby Frazier:that stuff. Yeah. No. Well, I didn't have a punch line.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I was waiting for a bit. I was waiting for it.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I know.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:So is there and and this may just be on me, but is there, like, a significance with sort of the name of of the of the of the work? More Than Conquerors and, you know, it's it's a powerful, you know, term. When you see the word conqueror, you know, that's that's powerful to me. We, like, is there significance around the name? What does it represent?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You know, could you speak on that of it?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So, first of all, in terms of the relationship to documenting community health workers rolling out the COVID-nineteen vaccine, as well as fighting the social determinants of health around Baltimore City for, you know, generations, when Doctor. Lisa Cooper, asked me to come to Baltimore, so she could introduce me to her 2 mentees, doctor Anika Hines and doctor Chitimaibe, so that they could teach me about a methodology called photo voice and introduce me to the community health workers whom I'd never met, it really came out of this question, that unfortunately came from me experiencing medical racism.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So during COVID nineteen, remember, we're all in quarantine and we're waiting for the vaccine to be created, and we're also waiting to be told what site to go to, especially depending on the group that you are in. I have lupus. I have an autoimmune disorder. Right? I take immunosuppressants, so that put me in phase 1b plus.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So, I was sent a QR code and instructions to show up at a site. I went to that site, and when I arrived there and waited in line like everyone else, I'm sitting in the chair just before the vaccine is administered into my arm, the manager of that site came up to me, prevented the woman from administering the vaccine, and asked me to come with him and told me that I falsified my QR code, that I wasn't supposed to be there, and basically detained me. And this was a powerful moment because what I was seeing in my visual force field is that we're showing up at an empty shopping center site on the north side of Chicago. It's, you know, flanked by the army, law enforcement, and the people who are administering the vaccination are black women, and they're all sitting in these desks, social distanced, site. I hadn't left my home, so it was terrifying for me to be detained and forced to sit at a vaccination site with an autoimmune disorder for, you know, 30, 40 minutes, you know, while this man, you know, publicly humiliates me and falsely accuses you know, this is racial discrimination and medical racism in a nutshell.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So, because I had that experience and I was watching the local news, and at that time, it was mayor Lori Lightfoot and doctor Fauci saying that black people didn't want the vaccination, and I knew it wasn't true because what I had just experienced. I'm, like, well, part of that might be true, but there's also this other experience in reality where we're being detained or racially profiled and being denied the vaccination. So it begged the question, if we are in fear of going to these sites for a multitude of justified reasons, If black people are not getting the vaccination, I have fear. Who is the liaison? Who is the point person that helps us get access to the COVID 19 vaccine?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Right.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so when I called doctor Cooper and told her what happened to me, that is when she said, oh, there is an answer. They are the community health workers and you need to come to Baltimore, Maryland so we can introduce you. So that is, you know, how I get on the ground there. I deploy myself with all my camera equipment, audio equipment, all my lights, my all my tripods, and I go to the Revival Hotel. And the view from my hotel window at the Revival Hotel in that's your Monument Street, Monument neighborhood, the view from my window is the George Washington Monument.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Mhmm. And so every day, I'm waking up, looking out my window at this George Washington Monument, right, someone who is a hero for our country, but also someone who owns slaves, right, when we think about the formation of this country and its contradiction. And then I'm also meeting on Zoom, on, Google sign up sheets, and then in person all across Baltimore City, these community health workers who are this invisible workforce. So that is what was starting to cause me to realize that there's a need here. There are 2 things happening here.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:1, there's a relationship between Hopkins and the people of Baltimore City where I think a new narrative could be charted, which is you have these incredible doctors like Doctor. Cooper, Doctor. Hines, and Doctor. Ebay, who are doing work dealing with these social issues, but yet the general public doesn't know. So, wanting to pay honor and visibility towards their research and their science was one of the motivations.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And the other one, of course, is that there's that history of Henrietta Lacks and the legitimate fear of Hopkins and what these doctors are doing. So what I'm bringing to Baltimore, the people of Baltimore, is this opportunity of this other narrative where there's this sisterhood, this network of doctors and scientists and researchers and reverend Deborah reverend Hickman is in this work. So also someone who is a reverend, right, from the church. Also Tiffany Scott, who is the 1st certified CHW of Maryland, who is also the cofounder of the Community Health Worker Association of Maryland, who's really the one driving all the policy and advocacy with the doctors to see them as a legitimate workforce. So making all of these connections through portraiture and interviews with all of them allows me to show you this connection between all of them and how people are really, creating networks of care and mutual aid and trust, in a way that we haven't seen before in the 21st century, not to mention the fact that they are the unsung heroes that are literally saving people's lives while risking their own.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And it became an urgent matter because these community health workers were living off of grants that were being sent from the state to these health institutions. So what that means to the viewers out there listening, if you are a community health worker living off of grant funding that is funneled through a health entity, a health corporation, that means you are not seen as a full time salaried employee. And if you are not a full time salaried employee in the United States, what does that mean? You do not have access to, health benefits and retirement. Right?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:There's a piece of irony there, right?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:The irony is they're literally risking their lives. There's, there are 3 invisible forces that they're fighting. The COVID-nineteen vaccine or the COVID-nineteen, we can't see it, right? This virus that is killing us, we can't see it. Then you have institutional racism, then you have structural and spatial racism happening around the history of the gentrification and redlining of Baltimore, and then of course you have social determinants of health, like access to clean water, groceries, a good school system, healthy neighborhoods.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So this is serious work that they're doing, and yet, the whole time we were in lockdown, they kept talking about essential workers, essential workers. Not one time was a community health worker ever mentioned as even an essential worker, and yet they refer to themselves as the foot soldiers of of health care in in this country. Without CHWs, there would be a lot of lives lost, and so I wanted to honor them with this 21st century workers' monument. And so to answer your title answer your question about the title More Than Conquerors, I needed to lay all that out to say, and now I'm gonna take you to church. The whole time that I was in that hotel and waiting to meet them across the city, I was playing Frank Kirkland's, More Than Conquerors.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I would play that to kinda get myself prepared and insulate myself so I could go out there and do the good work. But then, excerpt of it in terms of what I just broke down to you, this all these invisible things, I would play that to kind of get myself prepared and insulate myself so I could go out there and do the good work. But then also pulling from, Romans chapter 8 verses 35 through 39, which I will read you an excerpt of it in terms of what I just broke down to you, this invis all these invisible forces they are fighting without real support. Who shall ever separate us from Christ's love? Shall suffering and affliction and tribulation or calamity and distress or persecution or hunger or destitution or peril or sword?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Even as it is written, for thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are regarded and counted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet, amid all these things, we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through him who loved us. For I am persuaded beyond doubt that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our lord. So literally, they are enacting this scripture, and what I was thinking about in calling it More Than Conquerors and making it a 21st Century Workers' Monument while staring at George Washington's monument outside of my hotel window is it's amazing how we'll erect an image in the form of a man and as a society refuse to perceive the love enacted upon us during great times of sorrow and suffering like the COVID-nineteen by people who we choose not to recognize and perceive, right?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Like, community health workers of Baltimore, Maryland literally enacted agape love, the highest form of selfless love to intercede, to save people's lives during a catastrophic pandemic that killed millions of people. Right. And yet no one honored them or even said their names or even talked about their existence aside from these doctors and the reverend and the ones that I met, the community health workers themselves in Baltimore. And so that's where the title comes from, And at the BMA, the beautiful wall title that they designed in the museum is literally designed to replicate that George Washington monument so that you feel the monumental impact even in its design as you enter the monument.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Wow. Like I was saying earlier, letting people cook, you know. It's just like I'm getting the full the full thing and, and and thank you for that. And I I find, like, you know, in doing a visual thing, I cannot hide my face because you were just, you know, describing your experience. I was like, I need to run up on some people in Chicago a couple of years back if I can go back in time.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:It's I don't know, like, you know, in thinking about it and having that experience. And again, I'll say just thank you for the work that goes into this and sort of with that coupled experience that, you know, that that you had as well that's just there. You know, having, you know, my immediate family, all folks in sort of that compromised group, And I I wasn't, but I was just like, this is probably the thing to do. And also just because of where I work and the day job, really passing along that information and, you know, sort of that maybe that misinformation, that lack information, how that stuff was sort of rolled out here and that that notion that, oh, Black people don't wanna take it and so on. I come from a Black family, and I was just like, look, you gotta we gotta look into this.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:We gotta you know, here's here's some actual, like, real vetted information because this is something that we need to look into, and we need to address amid this sort of the misinformation that was sitting out there. And, also, just being inside, you know, just really going back and and then thinking about it, like, you know, this this sort of podcast and this the community component to it and sort of the storytelling that goes along with it, it started around, you know, that time and being able to connect with people and having people share sort of their real stories. And some of the things you touched on, it's going backwards for me, going back in time of living it, experiencing it. And then, you know, I have a marketing background and seeing how, you know, we kind of stopped talking about it at a certain point, or we didn't take it seriously initially. And then it was politicized, the point.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:And that's not necessarily, you know, what this conversation is about, but it really makes me think, like, hey, we we got past it, but also this was a very weird time. And these things, these stories, the work that was done there and the the the lives that were risked and the the choices that were made for the betterment and the protection of all of us. They just kinda swept under the rug. And, you know, having the work that that that you've done here to to honor these folks and to really, you know, acknowledge and and document and kinda lift up sort of their their contribution, their their their choice, and their, in many ways, their sacrifices. That's such such an important work, such important work.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:So I want to I want to ask one more thing because you've done a lot of my work for me, actually. You kinda, like, knocked out 4 of my questions, so so thank you.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I get to teach it and preach it. You know? I'm a teacher and a preacher at heart in disguise of an artist. Yes.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I I see. I appreciate it. I noticed I peeped the flavor. I look, I was like, alright. That's a that's a fly seat right there.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I can't go talk to her, you know? So the I I I'd like the it's the these IV polls. Right? So what was what sort of that that choice and those considerations there? Because, you know, I I like I like that sort of the the intent there.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:It's like the images that are there, the polls are used. I was like, alright. This is this is cool. This is bringing your attention to this, and it's really putting it right there for you. What was what was that like?
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:What was guiding that that choice?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Yeah. So, the intravenous pole stands, the medical equipment, the IV poles. I mean, it's what they represent, right? Universally, when we have our loved ones sick and they have to go to the emergency room or if they're admitted into the hospital for a long time or during COVID-nineteen, in addition to needing hooked up to the ventilators so that they can keep breathing, they also need hydration and nutrients. And so, it made a lot of sense making work about the healthcare industry in this country to shift if I wanted something sculptural, architectural, and installation based, that could help move the viewer's body through the space.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:It became really, I think interesting and universal to pull in this medical equipment that we all know, and also as an artist thinking about the history of photography and documentary work. Well one way to push it forward, you know, past the 21st century is to start to incorporate medical equipment, utilitarian things. I mean, these are still poles with wheels on them, so even the material itself reinforces the root of my work, right? It's made out of stainless steel, and so for your viewers that are listening, when you walk into the Monument for Community Health Workers, you walk into a room where you are all of a sudden standing before 18 IV pole stands that are social distanced. So the whole monument is reinforcing the CDC guidelines of the 6 foot social distance.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So, I literally take you back into how we were embodying something we didn't know we would survive or what the outcome would be. And so, the spatial relationship of it allows you as the viewer to kind of move through that space kind of remembering that social distance rule. Also, what you see when you walk in is that the IV poles are extended all the way to 9 feet, so they're very tall and en masse and very unified, even down to the wheels that are all turned the same exact way and is bolted into the floor. Now, where it gets really unique and drives another important point of my practice home is that it has 2 faces, two sides. There's 2 fronts to this monument.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Not only is it medical equipment, but I've also modified it so that it has an armature that holds 4 vertical photographs, 2 on each side. The the 4 vertical photographs are comprised of 1 on the one side you see facing you as the viewer, it's one portrait of the CHW and the doctor and the reverend who could prevail their identities. And then next to it is their testimony. So, their words. Yeah.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Right? And what I'm saying as an artist, especially in the museum and the gallery world, if we wanna use visual representations and depictions of figures, we should also allow them to speak for themselves. And what they have to say is equally important to that depiction and representation. So you see me equally saying, all of this text over here that I've also printed like a photograph, their words are as equally as important as this portrait of them as a subject. That way they are contextualizing and authoring the context in the narrative around us as the viewer consuming their image or an image of them.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:On the reverse side, the second front is something that I'm really proud of, which is, Johns Hopkins Health Equity Center run by Doctor. Cooper and Doctor. Chidema Ebe, who's devoted over 25 or more years to community health workers. It's her study, a real IRB review study from Hopkins called ALEC, a lived experience of community health workers. And so I met with doctor Ebay with, I think, 4 or 5 different cohorts during the pandemic online.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Again, this whole thing is created during the pandemic and a lot of it online, so I met with each cohort group of anonymous CHWs because if you're part of a study, you can't reveal your identity, So I had them get these cameras that allowed them to create high res digital images that I could treat like museum quality images. I brought in Flynn and his family and the Notion of Family, my own work, to teach them how to compose and frame a photograph and then talk to them about the idea of a new concept of what a self portrait can be because they can't reveal their identity. Then they went all across Baltimore City photographing social determinants of health or spaces they go to for tranquility and peace or things that are important to them. So, they're the ones shooting the images, and so that's what you see on another side is this their photographs with their text that breaks down their lived experience as well as the social determinants of health that they combat in addition to the COVID virus. And this is important because what I'm saying is I am elevating an amateur photographer's work on the same level as mine, right, an artist who's gone through all the hoops and has all the seal of approval of all the ivy leagues and institutions, I am elevating them to the same status and level as an equal partner in what you see.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And because I'm doing that as a visual artist in the 21st century, in a 21st century workers' monument, what I'm actually doing is the other work, which is democratizing the arts. This monument received the Carnegie Prize at the Carnegie International before it came to Baltimore. So literally, Andrew Carnegie, an industrial capitalist who's known for oppressing and suppressing his workforce, who this is the oldest international museum exhibition in this country since the 1800. When you look up what the Carnegie International is and what people have won the prize, you've never seen someone who is born and raised from Pittsburgh, who comes from Andrew Carnegie's town, who makes work about working class people, who makes work about being socially conscious, who makes work about advocating for workers' rights and civil rights win that prize. So, literally, I've elevated amateur CHWs to the status of mine being invited into that institution, and now they have received that prize.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so for me, it's just like he must be rolling over in his grade because it's the complete subversion and the inverse of what these institutions are designed to do, which is not elevate the very people that I am choosing to elevate that are invisible. And so depaurotizing the arts is something that's important to me as well as art and education, And so to circle back to the length of the text that you see when you're in this exhibition, I interviewed them. When I went out to photograph them, I deployed myself at a location. So they would put on a Google doc, Tiffany Scott put this Google doc together. I was, like, sitting in the hotel hitting refresh every hour, like a photographer dispatch, waiting for them to put in an address, so there would be 2 portraits, or there would be 2 times I would meet them.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:1 wherever they wanted to be interviewed and the second one where they wanted to be photographed. Typically the interview kind of led to the location of where they wanted to be photographed, so I would deploy myself twice. And so the text you see comes from a 3 hour interview that is then transcribed, and then I put on my other hat. Having worked in mass media for many years, since 2,006, I began to be an editor so that once we edited and transcribed what they said to me in the audio, we then took it down to about 25 20 2,500. I always forget the exact number of words, but basically it is edited down because this kept coming up in all the interviews.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:The length of text you see no matter if you read slow, medium, or fast, by the time you read it, which will be about 15 to 20 minutes, that is the length of a doctor's appointment in this country. So that's why the length of text is the way it is and the monument is designed for you yourself as a viewer to make an appointment to come to the BMA like you would return to a doctor's appointment and take in 1 IV pole stand at a time or maybe do a row at a time, right? It's not meant for you to try to read it all at once.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so that's important to understand the concept of how the words are shaped because if they were being interviewed by someone from the New York Times or the New Yorker or any of these media outlets, they would not be able to speak as long as they did and say exactly the way they said it. We know folks from East and West Baltimore speak a little differently, got a little different cadence, so in this instance of wearing my cap as an editor, I'm allowing them to speak for themselves in their own authentic true voice and to say it how they want to say it on the record. Right? In this, I'm not trivializing them or sanitizing their language, so you really are hearing things that you would never hear about if it was in the hands of one of our mass media corporations. So that's important, right, to be a citizen artist that is really showing up for the people using your photographs as a platform and also using your agency to allow them to speak truth to power and to, you know, get real information out to folks, right?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:This is also about getting people the real information they need to know about this workforce and what we need to be asking our state representatives for in the type of policy and legislation that is needed to see them as a viable workforce because we really actually need community health workers.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:That's this is definitely gonna be the companion piece audio for the exhibit because I'll get it all of it. This is amazing. And, again, just, you know, just as as a Baltimorean and sort of the intent and just some of these these these other details that are there, the the sort of length piece that mirrors the length of a doctor's visit, the social distance component, just those different details that are there, it just reminds me of some of the tactics some of my favorite, like, filmmakers and artists do. It was just like, yeah, put that in there because, you know, I was kicked out of this school, so I made the distance from this part to this part, the distance from that school to my house. I was like, yeah, you are.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah. You did.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:There's real conceptual rigor there. And also, you know, when you enter before you even enter the monument, what the BMA did was create this beautiful map. And so what it shows you, especially those of you from there, like, it shows you, except for when it's their private residence, it shows you all the plot marks of where I went all over Baltimore City to make those portraits. And one of the books that, one of the doctors gave me, Doctor. Ebay, was on the, black butterfly, which is about mapping and showing the segregation and the redlining and the gentrification, how certain pockets how it ends up being black.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So if you're sitting at, what is that, the Mount Vernon neighborhood coming up that incline, that map kinda shows you, and it's almost like the out outline of a butterfly in terms of, like, how we as black people are moving through these, demarcation lines, right, this redlining, even when it's Hopkins, because it comes up in Latish Walker's piece, who's the first CHW you see when you walk in the room, you're greeted by her, and she's literally standing on the stoop of her house in, the Oliver community in East Baltimore where she's witnessing, preaching, and teaching, and talking to these Hopkins intern doctors on the hottest day of the year, where she makes them walk from the hospital through Baltimore, through her to her side of the community, so that they can feel what it feels like for a client and a patient who's trying to either take buses or walk and make it to their appointment on time. When they get there, Hopkins is so big and there's so many entrances and different streets, if they are a minute late trying to get into the entrance and navigate the building to figure out where they're to be, they'll say, you have to get a new appointment, your appointment is canceled, you're late.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so her being a community health worker who works in that hospital, who is asked by a doctor to take these interns out and help make them feel what it feels like for folks trying to navigate that institution, it becomes very real. And she's doing such an incredible service by doing these walks, and I witnessed it. By the end, they had so many questions for her. She makes it so you can ask any question, no matter if it's filled with prejudice, racism, implicit bias. She had them asking all kinds of questions that was making them rethink some of their own notes that they had taken on patients.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And, you know, by the end of the walking tour with Latish, many of them thanked her and said, You know, I realize I have to go back and change my notes because what I said had implicit bias. Right? I mean, that's incredible.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Absolutely.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:That someone like Letish Walker is existing within the the healthcare institution, being able to help them recognize and see their own implicit bias and prejudice or the fact that you don't know what it's like to embody walking through the city of Baltimore to try to get access to this hospital, and then on top of it, if the person is disabled, it's even worse. And so it tells the story, she's telling that story on top of standing on her own stoop, where she has her own teenage sons that are living in her home, dealing with the pressure of landlords' own discrimination against black teenage young men because they're seen as a threat or a nuisance to the property. So, like, there's her own private reality as she's standing on her own stoop in front of her front door and then also prophesying to these interns that, you know, really need to think twice about their attitudes towards patients. The other reason why I call the text TESTIMONIES is because literally when I'm saying to people in Baltimore, I'm telling all the people in the city of Baltimore that are the unsung heroes and and the foot soldiers of that region working these everyday jobs, you're the prophets and apostles of the 21st century.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:You are. Right? It's not the people with the Ivy League degrees. It's not the CEOs. It's not the politicians.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:It's not the wealthy. It is actually the folks who live at the intersection of all of these disparities, inequities, and calamities. Like, literally being put to death all day long, persevering, keeping your joy, right? Yeah. Overcoming every obstacle, that makes you the prophet and the apostle of our time.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:And so it's my way of just tipping my hat, you know, and saluting people of Baltimore City to let them know, like, people do see you from outside and people do relate to you. You know, I'm certainly one of them. You know, I don't make work about things I haven't experienced, right, so this is this is personal and political for me because I'm not far removed from the people in my work at all. I've went through the same things and the same obstacles, so, you know, I want people of Baltimore to feel celebrated. And so, you know, the whole point of this monument was to make their presidential portrait.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:That's how I pitched it to them. So when you see these portraits, these are my presidential portraits for community health workers.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I love it. And I want to move into these. I got a few rapid fire questions for you if you, you know, indulge me and then we'll close out because this is this is great. I need to get back over there for my next visit.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:That through March. You know, give me any visits.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:That's that's wonderful. And and again, you know, just just really great. I'm I'm really fortunate that we're able to have this conversation and getting all of this this extra detail, extra content and context directly from you. So that's really, really cool. And, you know, folks listening.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah. Here you go. Make sure you go. Listen to this. So I got a couple of rapid fire questions.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You don't wanna you don't wanna overthink these. I overthink everything, but you don't wanna overthink these. They're very goofy questions. One is is such so troll y, but it's good. So I'm gonna hit you with the first one, and then we'll just go into the next.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:So the first one goes a lot like goes this way. Would you prefer a road trip or a cruise?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Oh, that's that's easy for me, a road trip.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Okay. The next one is the is the trolley one. What is your favorite metal?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Well, it's it's it's gonna have to be, iron or steel. I mean, I'm from Stiltown.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:I'm I'm just being I'm just being a pun guy. I'm just being just running bits just running bits at this point. Thank you. That's that's you you you satisfied that answer. If if you had to limit and and this goes to just, you know, in doing the the research and just seeing just you you got some fashion with you.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You know, I like it. I like the fits. If you had to limit the colors that you wore for a year, which three colors would you wear? You could only wear those 3 colors for a full calendar year. Which three colors would they be?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Red, black, and green. RPG.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:You get it. You get it. And this is the last one. I think I know the answer, but, you know, careful planning or spontaneity? And this is just a general.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I'm a hybrid. I'm a hybrid. I'm an extroverted introvert and, I could also be, someone who's a planner on top of it type a, but also can kinda move with the wind and flow if necessary.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:That's a very hard to answer.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I'm an Aquarius. My moon rising star, all that stuff people talk about, I'm an Aquarius through and through, all of it.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Hold hold on. This was not in the research. I am also an Aquarius.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Okay. Alright. See, that's why we're having a good time here now.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Yeah. I was just like because usually that's the one. That's like one of the precursors, like, in in the entry form. Are you an Aquarius? Yes or no?
LaToya Ruby Frazier:All the way through. All of it.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Thank you. Thank you for indulging me on this Aquarius dish, minutiae at the end of this podcast, and, so there's there's 2 things I want to do as we wrap up here. 1, I want to, again, just thank you for everything. Thank you for your work. Thank you for being on this podcast.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:Thank you for the conversation. And, and 2, I wanna invite and encourage you to share any, like, final thoughts, any, you know, like, plugs or anything you wanna have in these final moments. The floor is yours.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I would just like to say and remind people that it's important to, uplift black working class people in this country. We're about to enter into, a real scary, second term under Trump administration and the constitution and democracy absolutely was on the ballot. And, you know, the choice was made, and just remember that only half, less than half of Americans voted. When it comes to the swing states, take a closer look at those numbers as well because they were also in some of those states close, so we can't give up hope on the swing states. But more importantly, educate yourself about the electoral college.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:I think that it is, mind blowing with all the ivy league and all the attorneys and lawyers and everything that we so called have in these upper echelons of society that we have not come up with a way to get rid of the electoral college. It should not be the swing states deciding the direction of our nation, and I would also encourage people to get serious about holding yourself accountable to voting in the future. Again, less than half of this country voted, so that meant a lot of people didn't vote which decided the direction that we would go, but in reality, it should be the law. Right? Civil rights fought so that we could have the right to vote, so it should be the law that we are all allowed to vote and should vote.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So if you're not putting any type of thinking towards that, I think that you should. There will be repercussions for this. I guarantee you with what we see that's gonna happen now with, with the EPA, the FDA, with, all our health care in this country, with the threat of taking away the Affordable Care Act and all the people that are being appointed that don't even believe in vaccines, Like, this is going to be darker than people realize. Do everything that you can. Educate yourself on those folks that are being appointed.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Think about how that's gonna impact your family and community and move accordingly. The decision that this country made also puts, artists like me, you know, in the trigger here of of these types of politicians that have these attitudes that people who are educated and understand the truth about our history and legacy and holding our country accountable to its claims to be a democracy, it makes it harder for us to teach. It makes us harder for us to mentor people. It makes it harder for us to go out there and make the work. So if you don't understand artists, take the time to learn.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Your homework assignment is to read James Baldwin's speech, The Creative Process. He wrote it in 1962, I believe. Read The Creative Process. It's a PDF. You can download it online and read it.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:Understand that, black artists and artists who make socially conscious work and work about equity need your support during these 4 years, and more importantly, start to be aware of what's happening with the elected officials in your community and hold them accountable. I am happy for Maryland because you now have Angela Alsobrooks in the senate, you have Governor Wes Moore, and you have some pretty amazing people. Also, the director, OSMA, at the BMA. I mean, all of these folks are doing a lot of really good work, so I think even though it'll be a dark period over this nation, Baltimore and Maryland are sitting in a pretty good position, but make sure that you show up. The next time a black woman is running to do the real job, believe her, listen to her, value her, and, you know, the number shows our attitude towards black women leaders, and I just wanna remind you, this country this country isn't anything without black women.
LaToya Ruby Frazier:So that is what I have to impart to you, and, thank you for listening.
Rob Lee - Truth In This Art Podcast:And there you have it, folks. I wanna again thank LaToya Ruby Frazier for coming on and sharing a bit of her story with us and telling us some of the details around the current installation, More Than Conquerors, at the Baltimore Museum of Art. And for LaToya Ruby Frazier, I am broadly saying that there's art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just gotta look for it.
