["New York Close Up"]
[The Studio Museum in Harlem]
LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER: The work that I make with my mother is highly collaborative.
To the point that my mother is the one that orchestrates when we shoot,
where we’re going to shoot.
She wanted to operate the camera.
And so it became important for me to look at my mother as an artist.
To recognize and honor her point of view.
["LaToya Ruby Frazier Makes Moving Pictures"]
LaToya has been documenting her family for over 10 years.
My mom has gone far and beyond most mothers by allowing me to photograph her
in these very revealing images.
CYNTHIA FRAZIER: You got to know how to step!
LATOYA: I mean, we have a huge bond and a sense of camaraderie.
CYNTHIA: Hello.
Hi, I’m her mom.
And I don’t think I’m all there sometimes.
But you can talk to one of my personalities if you want to. [LAUGHS]
LATOYA: People think that families struggling economically don’t add value to society.
It became about making a family album of images--
day to day--
that defies what I see in the media.
I was looking at, especially with my mom, how beautiful she really is.
I was combating stereotypes of someone like my mother and I
who are often depicted in the media in the most dehumanizing way
as poor, worthless, or on welfare.
We find a way to deal with these types of problems on our own
through photographing each other.
I realized that it’s important to give the camera to my family.
And also become the subject of the work.
"Self-portrait, March 10:00 a.m." was shot after I had buried my grandmother in Pittsburgh.
And I felt like more than my soul went with her.
So at that moment, because my grandmother died from pancreatic cancer and diabetes
and I’ve been fighting lupus all my life as well...
It became important for me to look at why we’re dying.
I’ve always been in the shadow of the steel mill.
Braddock is five miles or less outside of Pittsburgh.
Braddock went from 20,000 or more people to less than 2,000 today.
And if you live in proximity to the mill,
you’re really breathing in toxins.
What you’re seeing here is my mother and I getting an ion cleanse bath.
DOCTOR: And you can see after we’ve....
LATOYA: It pulls all the toxins out through the pores of your feet.
DOCTOR: ...just broke up. But all this is liver and intestines.
CYNTHIA: Thank you.
DOCTOR: You’re welcome.
Glad you want to do that.
It’s going to make you healthy.
It’s that much less toxin that your body has to worry about.
LATOYA: Wow.
DOCTOR: You get a good shot of that one?
LATOYA: My work really addresses how a geographic location impacts the body.
My mom has some type of a neurological problem now.
Just recently the doctor told her that now she has a bone disease.
Your environment impacts the body
and it shapes how you perceive yourself in the world.
The mind is the battleground for photography.
My mind was totally deceived and deluded with negative images
depicted in the media of myself,
of my family,
and my community.
But now my images can change that.
Our mind sees in images.
We imagine ourselves to look a certain way.
We imagine ourselves in a certain place.
We have dreams of how we want things to be around us.
We need a radical documentary work.
It’s about really questioning things and interrogating things.
My family happens to only be a springboard
to talking about bigger issues of class,
health care, and environmental racism.
If you’re looking at our faces and in our eyes and at our gaze,
we’re just reflecting society around us
outside of the door.
It’s not easy to photograph your family.
It’s not easy to put yourself in your work.
CYNTHIA: I love you. You’re my baby.
LATOYA: But I have to tell my story because it hasn’t been told.
I’m a human being and my life has value and I refuse to be erased.