Born in 1982, LaToya Ruby Frazier grew up in the poorest neighborhood of Braddock, Pennsylvania, known as “the Bottom” due to its low elevation and proximity to a steel mill. From an early age she noticed the ways in which deindustrialization and the erasure of Black working-class communities had affected her own family and the people around her. In high school, she began taking photographs. Frazier would combine art and activism, using her work to tell forgotten stories. Commenting on a 2022 exhibition in which she captured the residents of Flint, Michigan, Frazier said, “There has to be a deep empathy. There’s a need to be compassionate and to really, truly see someone’s humanity when they’re at their lowest.” MoMA’s exhibition will highlight the artist’s social advocacy and present her numerous bodies of work in a sequence she calls “monuments for workers’ thoughts.” —Jeanne Malle