LaToya Ruby Frazier’s “Flint is Family” explores environmental injustice at Kochi-Muziris Biennale
Kochi / March 20, 2026
Kochi, Mar 20: The video installations by acclaimed Chicago-based artist LaToya Ruby Frazier at Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) examine environmental injustice and the lived experiences of working class communities in the USA.
Frazier’s practice focuses on the rights, struggles, and legacies of working class communities in the manufacturing corridors and deindustrialised regions of America. Through collaborative documentary processes, she creates photographs, texts, performances, and installations that function as tools for visual and social justice.
Working closely with communities that are part of her projects, Frazier emphasises co-authorship in producing testimony, storytelling, and image-making. Her work seeks to restore narrative agency to people directly affected by livelihood and environmental crises, particularly those shaped by gender discrimination and racism.
Drawing from her own experiences with the impact of toxic environments on families, she examines similar situations across the country and challenges the media silence surrounding such crises.
At the ongoing KMB, Frazier is exhibiting two works from her larger project Flint is Family (2016–22), which chronicles the devastating water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The project documents the consequences of government negligence that triggered one of the worst man-made water crises in the United States. Once a major automobile hub with a large Black working-class population, Flint continues to struggle with the basic right to safe and uncontaminated water.
Currently on view at the Anand Warehouse, the video installation portrays life amid the prolonged crisis through the experiences of singer, bus driver, and activist Shea Cobb and her family.
Frazier’s compassionate photographic narratives capture everyday life shaped by the crisis: from protests and contaminated school water fountains to community safety notices and the growing distrust of government institutions. Alongside these moments, the work also documents intimate scenes of resilience, including Cobb helping her daughter with homework, attending family gatherings, and installing water alkalisation units at home.
Through monochromatic imagery, Frazier and Cobb bring attention to the ongoing struggle for dignity, safe homes, and a better future for communities confronting environmental injustice and displacement.
ENDS
Photo Gallery
