Black Diamonds by Rich-Joseph Facun

Issue 166

Black Diamonds is a personal endeavor, an effort to connect with and understand the region I now call home. As a person of color, I define my community based on personal experience, which diverges from the stereotypes of race, religion, gender, and politics that can be attached to the area by outsiders. When violence across the nation is aimed at specific groups of people, my images ask implicitly: Am I accepted in this community? Am I safe here? 

It is also a visual narration hinting at life as it once was, sharing the hyper-realism of what it is today and the uncertainty of what it is to become in a post-coal era. 

These communities, pieces of a whole, are the former coal mining boomtowns of bygone days. The era of coal-fired prosperity was short lived, lasting roughly 50 years from 1870‒1920. After draining the mountains of their bounty and the people of their power, the industry moved on—but the heritage remains. 

Life in Appalachia is fraught with mystery and mis-characterization; it’s marginalized or otherwise stereotyped as little more than “Trump Country.” Yet, in all my interactions, that name has never once been involved—in this place, the simple needs of day-to-day survival loom larger than the abstract issues of politics. 

My work is experiential and a visual exploration of place, community, and cultural identity in a polarized political climate and racially divided era in the United States. The images strive for an understanding of people and place through their daily goings-on. 

In the rural isolated foothills, pocked with poverty, these facets of Appalachia coexist with one another. A heritage of hospitality, not hate, is an unspoken psalm. 

Rich-Joseph Facun (he/him) lives and works in Millfield, Ohio, USA.
facun.com | @facun