HUB
Johns Hopkins University

Award-winning photo series was inspired by the work of Johns Hopkins physician-researcher Lisa Cooper, her colleagues, and the community health workers who supported and served Baltimore neighborhoods during the pandemic

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Lisa Cooper, Founder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, met LaToya Ruby Frazier in 2015 at The Contemporary, a nomadic, Baltimore-based non-collecting museum that engages audiences through subject-oriented projects and educational programming. During that dialogue on creative approaches to improve society, the Liberian-born physician-researcher and the artist from Braddock, Pennsylvania, realized they were working on similar problems, using approaches informed by their unique professional and lived experiences. And Frazier became inspired by Cooper’s observation that her photographic installations could be valuable to health professionals and public health researchers working to advance health equity.

One of the nation’s leading researchers on health disparities and the creator of interventions that empower patients from socially marginalized groups to take more active roles in their care, Cooper saw in Frazier’s photography (including a series centered on Frazier’s own family) the health implications of economic distress and social inequities. Frazier captured in the series, for example, her community’s failed plight to save their local hospital from closure in 2011.

“Her art gives voice to people from marginalized groups in society who experience poor health as a result of that marginalization”

— Lisa Cooper

Cooper, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins who founded and leads the Center for Health Equity. “And I’ve used my expertise and platform as a physician and public health scientist to shed light on those same kinds of issues.”

Cooper also noted the similarities between Frazier’s artwork and “photovoice,” a storytelling technique used by the public health field that places cameras in the hands of participants to document their daily lives.

Cooper and Frazier, both MacArthur Fellows, crossed paths over the years as Frazier continued highlighting communities on the brink: families suffering through the Flint, Michigan water crisis, auto production workers laid off in Lordstown, Ohio, former coal mine workers in Belgium. When Frazier’s mother faced a health crisis, their relationship took a more personal turn as Cooper navigated the family toward one of her colleagues in Pittsburgh.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the two friends found their first opportunity to work collaboratively. Cooper pointed Frazier’s attention to an unsung group in Baltimore: the community health workers who were on the ground helping residents with critical resources and information about preventing the spread of coronavirus. “I didn’t think their stories were getting told enough,” Cooper says. “People seemed to understand the role of doctors and nurses in the pandemic, but not CHWs. They weren’t heard, or seen as the heroes they are.”

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Courtesy of: HUB Johns Hopkins University

Artsy
Tara Fay Coleman

The Carnegie International, the longest-running North American presentation of international art, opened its 58th edition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 24th. Featuring work by over 100 artists and collectives, the 2022 iteration of the International necessitated not only a Pittsburgh-based curatorial team, but a broader international curatorial council and advisory group to help create and shape the exhibition.

Titled “Is it morning for you yet?”—a reference to an expression in Mayan Kaqchikel culture, which is customary to ask instead of saying “Good morning”—the show was organized by Sohrab Mohebbi, the Kathe and Jim Patrinos Curator of the 58th Carnegie International, and associate curator Ryan Inouye, with curatorial assistant Talia Heiman.

Broadly, the show, which runs through April 2, 2023, is a transformative learning experience that considers different histories of abstraction, methodologies of making, and materiality. At the same time, it’s a highly political survey of contemporary artists who ask viewers to consider acknowledging each other’s pains through their work. The exhibition decentralizes art in the United States, presenting work that, as Mohebbi explained, “expands beyond curatorial conceits and categories.”

The broader curatorial team chose not to respond to the pressures of the art market or celebrity culture, and instead focused on using this opportunity to bring different artistic voices to the forefront of international art, seeking works that reflected many versions of the idea of “contemporary.”

LaToya Ruby Frazier

A community health worker is a frontline public health professional who is a trusted member, or has an unusually close understanding, of the community they serve. They often act as liaisons between residents, health care systems, and state departments, and aid in advocacy, outreach, and education for those in need.

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland (2021–22) is a monument to both these workers and their collaborators, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pittsburgh-born artist, who is showing in the International for the first time, was awarded with the Carnegie Prize for this work.

Frazier’s photographic installation focuses on the health workers she connected with over a three-month period in Baltimore through workshops that were part of a study led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. The piece includes double-sided texts and images displayed on modified IV poles that are socially distanced, each focusing on health workers’ stories.

Frazier’s work glorifies and supports these figures while they’re still here, while also serving as a resource to teach about community health work as a profession. Ultimately, the piece provides insight into a specific community, within the context of a pandemic that affected populations all over the world.

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Courtesy of: Artsy

Thursday, September 15 through Saturday, September 17, 2022
Stamps Gallery (Ann Arbor)
MSU Broad Museum (East Lansing)
Flint Institute of Arts

Join us for the community weekend of LaToya Ruby Frazier: Flint Is Family In Three Acts, which brings together five years of Frazier’s documentation of and collaboration with Flint residents as they endured the Flint water crisis. The Acts are being shown across three venues: Stamps Gallery (Act III) at University of Michigan, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (Act II), and Flint Institute of Arts (Act I), for the first time in Michigan and the US.

September 15

5:30–6:30pm at the Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor

Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Lecture by LaToya Ruby Frazier.

6:30–8:30pm at Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor

Act III opening reception & book signing with LaToya Ruby Frazier, Shea Cobb, and Amber Hasan.

September 16

12:00–1:30pm at Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor

Act III walkthrough led by artist LaToya Ruby Frazier in conversation with Shea Cobb and Amber Hasan as they discuss their experience collaborating together to create the work on view. Event is free but prior registration is required. Click here to register.

6pm–8pm at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing

Act II opening reception with LaToya Ruby Frazier and Mr. Douglas R. Smiley

September 17

1:00–2:00pm at the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint

Act I Reception with light refreshments in Isabel Hall

2:00–4:00pm at the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint

Panel discussion featuring LaToya Ruby Frazier, Shea Cobb, and Amber Hasan, and Mr. Douglas R. Smiley (father of Shea Cobb and subject of Act II) moderated by Niecole Middleton. Book signing to follow.

More information…

Courtesy of: Flint Institute of Arts