Gladstone is pleased to announce its first exhibition with LaToya Ruby Frazier. The show presentsthe artist's most recent work, More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workersof Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022, for the first time in New York after its recent premiere at the58th Carnegie International, in which it was the highest award. Comprising stainless steel IV poles,archival inkjet prints, and text panels, this installation was created as a celebration of thecommunity health workers (CHWs) of Baltimore, Maryland, and proposes a new approach tomonument making in the 21st century.
The origin of this work was first borne from a conversation in 2015 hosted by The Contemporaryand The Baltimore School for the Arts between the artist and Dr. Lisa Cooper, BloombergDistinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School ofPublic Health and the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, on the ways in whichart, science, medicine, technology, and politics might intersect to benefit society and address healthinequity and environmental racism. During this discussion, Dr. Cooper explained the medicalsignificance of one of Frazier's most seminal bodies of work, The Notion of Family (2001–2014), andhow this photographic documentary series was a form of medical visual art that closely related it toa concept known as photovoice, in which oppressed individuals use cameras and storytelling todocument disparities in their environments that are shared with doctors and policymakers in orderto bring forth awareness and change. Their friendship grew more personal when Dr. Cooperinterceded on behalf of Frazier's mother with the healthcare system. Conversations continued andthe two began to think through how to collaborate on a project around social justice and healthequity.
As the COVID-19 Pandemic and quarantine ensued Frazier received a 2020–21 NationalGeographic Storytelling Fellowship and a commission for the Carnegie Museum 58th CarnegieInternational. After experiencing yet another incident of medical injustice while trying to obtain afirst dose of the COVID vaccine, Frazier was connected through Dr. Cooper with menteesChidinma Ibe, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Anika Hines,assistant professor and health equity researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, andReverend Debra Hickman, president and CEO of STAR (Sisters Together and Reaching Inc.) anorganisation with CHWs involved in the initial vaccination rollout. Dr. Ibe introduced Frazier toTiffany Scott, the first certified CHW in the state of Maryland and the co-founder and chair of theMaryland Community Health Worker Association. Together they introduced Frazier to CHWs,individuals who play an essential role in providing life-saving support to those overlooked orblocked from receiving adequate medical assistance. Since the 1970s, CHWs have beeninvaluable connectors between residents, healthcare systems, and state health departments,increasing awareness of public health access and threats to ensure the safety of underservedcommunities.
Overlooked themselves, Frazier conceived of a worker's monument to honour CHWs on thefrontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and to honour the leadership, research, and relationships ofDr. Cooper, Dr. Ibe, Dr. Hines, Rev. Hickman and Tiffany Scott who are at the forefront ofadvocating and impacting policy change in support of community health workers. Between July2021 – September 2022 Frazier made portraits and conducted interviews with CHWs whileperforming outreach and vaccination rollouts serving their communities. Additionally, Frazier taughtCHWs how to make their own photographs in workshops led by Dr. Ibe for a photovoicecomponent of the study Amplifying the Lived Experiences of Community Health Workers (ALEC)at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. With her incisive documentary approach toart making Frazier then transcribed, edited, printed, mounted, framed, designed and fabricatedthis monument for workers' thoughts on behalf of, for, with, and about the role and importance ofCHWs in society and their relationships with doctors and faith leaders in their community whostrongly advocate for their work and livelihoods. This monument proclaims that community healthworkers should be seen as a profession, as salaried employees with full healthcare benefits andleave. The monument is comprised of eighteen medical IV poles that are nine feet tall and social-distance-spaced. The audience is welcome to walk among them to embody the social distancewe've come to know so well, to contemplate and reflect on each testimony and portrait face-to-face, and to have a moment of silence in order to mourn the loss of loved ones to COVID-19.
Through the close relationships the artist formed with the CHWs, doctors, and faith leader that werepart of this significant undertaking, More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community HealthWorkers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022 uproots the notion of what a monument can look like,who it serves, and what it celebrates in order to bring us closer to a more equitable and just society.
This work was made in collaboration with Dr. Lisa Cooper, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center forHealth Equity; Dr. Chidinma Ibe, Nico Dominguez Carrero, and Alison Trainor of the Johns HopkinsCenter for Health Equity; Dr. Anika L. Hines of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity andVirginia Commonwealth University; Mrs. Tiffany Scott, co-founder and Chair of the MarylandCommunity Health Worker Association; Reverend Debra Hickman, President and CEO of SistersTogether and Reaching, Inc (STAR) and co-chair of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity'sCommunity Advisory Board.; and Community Health Workers: La Kerry B. Dawson, Tracy Barnes-Malone, Karen Dunston, Kenya Ferguson, Griselda Funn, Erica Hamlett, Donnie Missouri, VedaMoore, Kendra N. Lindsey, Evelyn Nicholson, Helen Owhonda, Gregory Rogers, Wilfredo Torriente,and Latish Walker.
LaToya Ruby Frazier was born in 1982 in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her artistic practice spans arange of media, including photography, video, performance, installation art and books, and centreson the nexus of social justice, cultural change, and commentary on the American experience. Invarious interconnected bodies of work, Frazier uses collaborative storytelling with the people whoappear in her artwork to address topics of industrialism, rust belt revitalisation, environmentaljustice, access to healthcare, access to clean water, workers' rights, human rights, family, andcommunal history. This builds on her commitment to the legacy of 1930s social documentary workand 1960s and '70s conceptual photography that address urgent social and political issues ofeveryday life. Frazier's work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions at institutions in the USand Europe and her work is held in numerous public collections.
Press release courtesy Gladstone Gallery.
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