Artist’s Lordstown photos are a call to action —
‘The workers are the heroes’
Detroit Free Press
by Jamie L. LaReau
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s initial encounter with General Motors involved water, not cars.
About five years ago, GM was first to complain that corrosion, caused by high levels of chloride in the Flint water, was rusting engine blocks at its Flint Engine Operations.
“They were immediately shifted off the Flint River to the Flint township water, which was not contaminated,” said Frazier, an artist and professor of photography associated with the Art Institute of Chicago who was a 2015 MacArthur fellow. “It made me realize that corporations have access to more basic human rights than people do.”
Frazier spent four years in Flint photographing the impact of the bad water on its residents’ health.
GM would get her attention again on Nov. 26, 2018. That day, GM said it would cease operations at five of its plants in North America.
“My heart dropped. I immediately became very concerned for those workers and their families,” Frazier said. “I felt it was my duty and obligation to be there for the workers.”
Frazier did just that, spending nine months in Lordstown, Ohio, photo-documenting GM’s closure of its Lordstown Assembly plant — which GM sold Thursday to an electric truck start-up.
GM did not cooperate with her, but she still managed to capture 67 evocative photos of UAW members that reveal how their lives were forever altered when the last Chevrolet Cruze car rolled off the line in March and GM shut the doors to the plant.
The photos are part of an exhibit called “The Last Cruze” at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. It runs through Dec. 1. Next, it goes to the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University.
Frazier’s ultimate goal is to bring the exhibit to the Motor City, in part because of the rich history of union activism and civil rights here.
“Artists function best at keeping history alive,” said Frazier. “This (Lordstown) exhibit is a monument, a testament and a memorial to Lordstown, to UAW Local 1112 and to the United Auto Workers’ legacy.”
Courtesy of: Detroit Free Press
