A creative solution for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan

Artist and TED Fellow LaToya Ruby Frazier spent five months living in Flint, Michigan, documenting the lives of those affected by the city's water crisis for her photo essay "Flint is Family." As the crisis dragged on, she realized it was going to take more than a series of photos to bring relief. In this inspiring, surprising talk, she shares the creative lengths she went to in order to bring free, clean water to the people of Flint.

So, in 2016,

I was commissioned
to produce a photo essay

about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

And that's been going on since 2014.

And I accepted the commission

with the idea that I would photograph
three generations of women

dealing with the crisis on a daily basis.

I was fortunate to meet two best friends,

artists, activists and poets
Amber Hasan and Shea Cobb,

who took me around Flint.

As a school bus driver,
Shea Cobb became the central figure

of the photo essay,

along with her mother, Ms. Renée,

and her eight-year-old daughter, Zion.

I obsessively followed
Shea's school bus routes.

And when Shea wasn't driving the bus,

she would be watching over Zion,
making sure she was studying.

I embedded myself in every
intimate facet of Shea's life.

When Shea took me to Zion's school,

and I saw the water fountains
covered with signs that said,

"Contaminated. Do not drink,"

I couldn't pick up
my camera to photograph it.

It rocked me to the core
to see that in America,

we can go from fountains
that say "Whites" or "Blacks only,"

to today seeing fountains that say,

"Contaminated water. Do not drink."

And somehow, that's acceptable?

The residents in Flint
have been forced to drink with,

cook with and bathe with bottled water,

while paying the highest
water bills in the country

for water that is infected
with deadly legionella bacteria.

It was natural for me to go to Flint,

because industrial pollution,
bacteria-contaminated water

were all too familiar for me growing up
in my hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania,

where my mother and I battled cancer

and autoimmune disorders like lupus.

Our 14-year collaboration,
"The Notion of Family,"

was created out of our struggle
to survive environmental racism,

healthcare inequity

and chemical emissions
that were being deregulated

and released from the United States
Steel Corporation,

making Braddock the town with the highest
asthma and infant mortality rates

in the country.

From the Monongahela River
to the Flint River,

in the words of W.E.B. Du Bois,

"The town, the whole valley,
has turned its back upon the river.

It has used it as a sewer, as a drain,

as a place for throwing their waste."

General Motors has been cited
for dumping chemicals in the Flint River

for decades.

When my photo essay "Flint is Family"
came out in August of 2016,

it was released to remind America

that although Flint
was no longer headline news,

the water crisis was far from over.

And, of course, I knew

it was going to take more
than a series of photographs on my part

to bring relief to the people
in Vehicle City.

Shea and I bonded
over our mothers and grandmothers.

Amber and I bonded
over our battles with lupus.

Together, we decided to remain
in each other's life

and continue our creative efforts.

In 2017, Shea and Amber cofounded
artist collective The Sister Tour,

whose mission is to provide
a safe space for Flint artists.

One year later,

I mounted my solo exhibition,
"Flint is Family,"

here in New York City
at Gavin Brown's Enterprise

on West 127th Street.

As the audience approaches
the facade of the building,

they see a 30-foot billboard.

The 30-foot billboard is made
of three large color negatives

with the message "Water Is Life,"

spelled out in Nestle water bottles
by The Sister Tour.

Nestle, the largest water-bottling
company in the world,

pumps 400 gallons of water per minute
out of aquifers in Lake Michigan,

nearly free of charge.

The company also extracts
millions of liters of water

from First Nation reservations,

while they have no access
to clean water at all.

This is a fundraiser print
that I used to raise money

to send The Sister Tour
to different venues

to educate people on the ongoing crisis.

I also continued to keep it
in the public eye

by producing countdown flags

that were raised on institutions
across the country.

This past June,
Amber emailed me with the news

that Michigan's attorney general
dropped all criminal charges

in the Flint Water Crisis investigation,

where eight state and city employees

were facing charges
as serious as manslaughter.

I could no longer idly stand by

and wait for the government to do its job.

Justice has been delayed,

and justice has been denied.

It's been five years,

and we're still waiting on justice
for the men, women and children in Flint.

I asked Amber, "What can I do?"

She told me about a man named Moses West
that she met in Puerto Rico,

who invented a 26,000-pound
atmospheric water generator.

Amber took Moses to elected officials
in the city of Flint.

None of them seemed interested in bringing
the machine for relief to Flint at all.

Amber needed to get the machine
from a military base in Texas

all the way to Flint.

Nobody in Flint had
that kind of money lying around.

And it was at that point that I decided

to take the proceeds from my
solo exhibition "Flint is Family,"

along with the generous match grant
from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation,

and sent it to Moses West.

This past July,

Moses West and his atmospheric water
generator arrived to Flint, Michigan,

on North Saginaw
between Marengo and Pulaski,

and is actually still there
right now, operating.

This community that sits
three miles from downtown

has been stripped of its schools,

access to healthy grocery stores

and clean water.

Socially, it's viewed
as a violent, poor community.

But I see something completely different.

Moses, an officer, Ranger, veteran,

was very clear about his
water rescue mission:

Bring relief of free, clean water
to the people in Flint.

Teach them how to use the machine,

teach them how to take care of it,

and most importantly,
take ownership of the machine.

Tell everybody across the city
to bring all their containers

and come and take as much water
as they can stock up on,

especially before the winter season hits;

the machine doesn't extract moisture
in freezing temperatures.

This technology pulls air
through a high-volume air filter.

It mechanically creates condensation,

which produces 2,000 gallons
of water per day.

Residents are free
to walk up to the machine

anywhere between 9am and 8pm daily

and take as much as they want,

alleviating them from standing
in long lines for bottled water.

I've been at the machine,
interviewing people, asking them,

"What does it mean to see Moses
and his machine in [your] community?"

And, "What has it been like
living without access to clean water?"

Alita told me,

"It's a miracle that God gave Moses
the knowledge and technology

to provide us with pure drinking water."

She also told me that
prior to the machine coming,

she had severe headaches,

and the water made her
so sick to her stomach,

she couldn't eat.

Tina told me that
the lead-contaminated water

made her hair fall out.

Usually, she's weak and very light-headed.

Since using the machine,
she's had energy and strength.

David, he was overwhelmed with joy
that someone from Texas cared.

When he tasted the water,
he thought to himself,

"Now, this is the way
God intended water to be."

He brings three seven-gallon
containers to refill

to use at his barbecue stand.

Through creativity and solidarity,

Amber Hasan, Shea Cobb,

Tuklor Senegal, The Sister Tour,

myself, the people of Flint,

Dexter Moon, Moses West
and his atmospheric water generator

have been able to provide 120,000 gallons

of free, clean water.

(Applause)

The people in Flint deserve
access to clean water.

Water is life.

It is the spirit that binds us

from sickness, death and destruction.

Imagine how many millions
of lives we could save

if Moses's machine were in places like
Newark, New Jersey,

South Africa

and India,

with compassion instead of profit motives.

I loaded my camera,

I locked my focus,

and I placed my finger
over the shutter release,

as Shea and Zion went to take
their first sip of clean water.

When the shutter released,

I was overcome with a deep sense
of joy and righteousness.

When I sent Shea some of the photographs,

she wrote,

"Thank you again for the light
that you bring to my city."

I immediately replied,

"The light was already there within you."

It's been four years
since I've been photographing in Flint,

and finally, I've been able
to render a poetic justice.

No matter how dark a situation may be,

a camera can extract the light
and turn a negative into a positive.

Thank you.

(Applause)