PLEDGES OF ALLEGIANCE: FLINT, 1,462 Days and Counting Man-Made Water Crisis

SPACE is proud to raise artist LaToya Ruby Frazier’s flag, FLINT, 1,462 Days and Counting Man-Made Water Crisis (2018) as part of Creative Time’s Pledges of Allegiance project. 

LaToya Ruby Frazier asks for justice for the communities in Flint, Michigan, with a flag that reminds us of the number of days residents have been living without water as of April 25th, 2018. The photograph is from her 2016 work Flint is Family, where Frazier spent five months with three generations of Flint women who suffer and still thrive as they face the water crisis in Flint–“the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in recent national memory.”

Frazier states: “The number 1,462 is the exact amount of days Flint residents have lived without new pipes since the lead leaching took place.

Winner of the MacArthur “Genius” grant, LaToya Ruby Frazier’s artistic practice spans a range of media that incorporates photography, video and performance and centers on the nexus of social justice, cultural change and commentary on the American experience. Citing Gordon Parks as an influence, Frazier uses the camera as a weapon and agent of social change.

Pledges of Allegiance is a nationwide public art project by Creative Time. The project is a serialized commission of sixteen flags, each created by acclaimed contemporary artists: Tania Bruguera, Alex Da Corte, Jeremy Deller, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ann Hamilton, Robert Longo, Josephine Meckseper, Marilyn Minter, Vik Muniz, Jayson Musson, Ahmet Ögüt, Yoko Ono, Trevor Paglen, Pedro Reyes, Rirkrit Tiravanija, ​and Nari Ward.

Each flag embodies art’s ability to channel political passion, providing a unifying symbol around which to unite, as well as a call-to-action for institutions nationwide to raise upcoming Pledges of Allegiance flags in solidarity with Creative Time. Pledges of Allegiance aims to inspire a sense of community among cultural institutions, beginning with an urgent articulation of the political demands of the moment. Each flag points to an issue the artist is passionate about or a cause they believe is worth fighting for, and speaks to how we might move forward collectively as a country. To inaugurate the project, Creative Time raised Marilyn Minter’s RESIST FLAG on the roof of its headquarters on Flag Day, June 14.

Pledges of Allegiance was originally conceived by Alix Browne and developed in collaboration with Cian Browne, Fabienne Stephan, and Opening Ceremony.

Frazier’s flag will be on the flag pole at twenty-one cultural institutions and universities across sixteen states: California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Texas.