Research Catalog

Title

Flint is family in three acts / LaToya Ruby Frazier ; Shea S. Cobb, Amber N. Hasan, Douglas R. Smiley, community members of Flint, Michigan ; edited by Michal Raz-Russo ; with contributions by Michal Raz-Russo, Leigh Raiford, Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

Author

Frazier, LaToya Ruby, 1982-

Publication

• Göttingen, Germany : Steidl ; Pleasantville, New York : The Gordon Parks Foundation, 2022.
• ©2022

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Raz-Russo, Michal
• Raiford, Leigh
• Kunhardt, Peter W., Jr., 1982-
• Gordon Parks Foundation.

Description

321 pages : illustrations (some color); 33 x 28 cm

Summary

Frazier first traveled to Flint in 2016, as part of a magazine commission to create a photo essay about the water crisis. During that trip she met Shea Cobb, a Flint poet, activist and mother who became Frazier's collaborator in what would evolve into a five-year body of work. Divided into three acts, Flint is Family follows Cobb as she fights for her family's and community's health and wellbeing. Act I introduces Cobb, her family and The Sister Tour, a collective of women artists. Cobb lives with her mother and her daughter, Zion. She works as a school bus driver and hairstylist, while launching her career as a poet, writer and singer. To protect her daughter's health, Cobb makes the critical decision to leave her mother and friends behind and make the reverse migration to Mississippi, where her father resides on family-owned land. Act II follows Cobb and Zion to Newton, Mississippi, where they move in with Cobb's father, Douglas R. Smiley. There they learn how to take care of their Tennessee Walking Horses, as well as the land and fresh water springs they will one day inherit. Due to segregation and discrimination in the Newton County school system, Cobb and Zion eventually return to Flint. Act III documents the arrival of a 26,000-pound atmospheric water generator to Flint in 2019 that Frazier, Cobb and her best friend Amber Hasan, a hip-hop artist, herbalist and community organizer, helped set up and operate in their neighborhood. Spurred by the lack of mass-media interest in the impact of this ongoing crisis and inspired by the collaborative work of Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in 1940s Harlem, Frazier's approach ensures that the lives and voices of Flint's residents are seen and heard and that their collective creative endeavors provide a solution to this man-made water crisis.

Uniform Title

Works. Selections

Alternative Title

• Works.
• Flint is family in three acts : LaToya Ruby Frazier

Subject

• Frazier, LaToya Ruby, 1982-
• African American women artists > Catalogs
• African American women photographers > Catalogs
• Documentary photography > Michigan > Flint > Catalogs
• Photography, Artistic
• art photography
• documentary photography
• Social conditions
• Ecology
• Documentary photography
• African American women artists
• African American women photographers
• Environmental conditions
• Flint (Mich.) > Pictorial works
• Flint (Mich.) > Social conditions
• Flint (Mich.) > Environmental conditions
• Michigan > Flint
• United States

Genre/Form

• Photobooks.
• Pictorial works.
• Catalogs.

Note

• "The Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize 2021"--Colophon.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

A creative solution for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan / LaToya Ruby Frazier -- Act I / Shea S. Cobb -- Act II / Douglas R. Smiley -- Act III / Amber N. Hasan, Shea S. Cobb, and community members of Flint, Michigan -- The American landscape / Michal Raz-Russo -- Water no get enemy / Leigh Raiford -- Afterword / Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. -- List of works.

Call Number

Sc+ G 23-32

ISBN

• 9783958297531
• 3958297536

OCLC

1285700618

Author

Frazier, LaToya Ruby, 1982- photographer, artist.

Title

Flint is family in three acts / LaToya Ruby Frazier ; Shea S. Cobb, Amber N. Hasan, Douglas R. Smiley, community members of Flint, Michigan ; edited by Michal Raz-Russo ; with contributions by Michal Raz-Russo, Leigh Raiford, Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

Publisher

Göttingen, Germany : Steidl ; Pleasantville, New York : The Gordon Parks Foundation, 2022.

Copyright Date

©2022

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Note

CO-PUB. W/ GORDON PARKS FDN. PHOTOGRAPHS IN COLOR. 11" X 12.75".

Local Subject

Black author.

Added Author

Raz-Russo, Michal, editor, writer of supplementary textual content.

Raiford, Leigh, writer of supplementary textual content.

Kunhardt, Peter W., Jr., 1982- writer of supplementary textual content.

Gordon Parks Foundation.

Research Call Number

Sc+ G 23-32