LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier's intimate photographs of working-class families in the former steelworking and coalmining hubs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Borinage, Belgium Frazier's (born 1982) portraits reflect both a political engagement with and a personal investment in her subject matter. This book presents her seminal series The Notion of a Family, in which she documents three generations of her own family in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, alongside two more recent projects: On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford (2017), made in close collaboration with artist and steelworker Sandra Gould Ford; and Et des terrils un arbre s'élèvera (2016-17), made with the people of Mons in Borinage, Belgium, once home to a coalmine. Following a long tradition of photography as a tool for political activism, Frazier's intimate photographs provide insight into the daily lives of those most affected by the industries' decline.