Esteemed photographer to present annual lecture through Eccles A.P.E.X. series
From Grace A. Tanner Center for Human Values
Cedar City, UT — Acclaimed and highly awarded photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier will present “Art as Transformation: Using Photography for Social Change” as the 2025 Grace Adams Tanner Lecture in Human Values, part of the Eccles A.P.E.X. speaker series. Her lecture can be attended on Oct. 2 at 11:30 a.m. in the Great Hall of the Hunter Alumni Center on Southern Utah University’s campus. This event is free and open to the public.
“Art as Transformation” will frame photography as a battleground of representation. Frazier will discuss her experiences with photography as a means of combating various human injustices. In her lecture, she will open up about her conscious approach to photography, how to talk about family, place, and inheritance, and how images hold transformative power, both to paint a more accurate self-portrait of ourselves and to spur greater societal change.
Frazier’s artistic practice, in her words, spans a range of media, including photography, video, performance, installation art, and books. Her work centers on the nexus of social justice, cultural change, and commentary on the American experience, using collaborative storytelling with the people who appear in her artwork to address topics of industrialism, Rust Belt revitalization, environmental justice, access to healthcare, access to clean water, workers’ rights, human rights, family, and communal history. As she describes, this builds on her commitment to the legacy of 1930s social documentary work and 1960s and ‘70s conceptual photography that address urgent social and political issues of everyday life.
Numerous public collections hold her work, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress. She is also the recipient of various honors and awards, including MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, a proclamation from the Allegheny County Council, and two honorary doctorates from Edinboro University and Pratt Institute.
The Grace A. Tanner Center for Human Values, sponsoring this lecture, promotes human values by advancing cultural understanding, empathy, and social responsibility through critical thinking and dialogue in order to better appreciate the complexities of the human condition. The lecture provides a forum for scholarly and scientific learning in all areas of human values. For more information about the annual lecture or the center as a whole, visit suu.edu/tanner.
Eccles A.P.E.X., hosting this lecture, is SUU’s premier weekly lecture series, with speakers and presenters invited from all areas of the world. More information about Frazier’s lecture and others can be found at suu.edu/apex/.