1804

$65.00

1804 continues Rich-Joseph Facun’s exploration of life in the Appalachian foothills of Southeast Ohio, this time turning his lens toward the local university and its complex, symbiotic relationship with the surrounding community.

The work visually examines how heritage, socioeconomic forces, and youth culture are shaped—and at times, strained—by the university’s presence. In this rural region, the institution forms a liberal enclave within a largely conservative landscape. Yet, it also operates as a modern-day company town: a single, dominating employer and cultural force.

Having weathered the economic turmoil of the pandemic, the university now confronts renewed financial distress. Federal funding cuts enacted during the Trump administration have triggered staff layoffs, the cancellation of student visas, and anxiety over a looming decline in high school graduates—the lifeblood of future enrollment.

Are we witnessing a shift from boom to bust?

PREORDERS SHIP IN NOVEMBER

1804 continues Rich-Joseph Facun’s exploration of life in the Appalachian foothills of Southeast Ohio, this time turning his lens toward the local university and its complex, symbiotic relationship with the surrounding community.

The work visually examines how heritage, socioeconomic forces, and youth culture are shaped—and at times, strained—by the university’s presence. In this rural region, the institution forms a liberal enclave within a largely conservative landscape. Yet, it also operates as a modern-day company town: a single, dominating employer and cultural force.

Having weathered the economic turmoil of the pandemic, the university now confronts renewed financial distress. Federal funding cuts enacted during the Trump administration have triggered staff layoffs, the cancellation of student visas, and anxiety over a looming decline in high school graduates—the lifeblood of future enrollment.

Are we witnessing a shift from boom to bust?

PREORDERS SHIP IN NOVEMBER

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Rich-Joseph Facun is an Otomi and Pinoy storyteller, photographer, and bookmaker presently based in the Appalachian Foothills of southeast Ohio. His work aims to offer an authentic look into ways in which individual identity is influenced by the economic, geographic, and community norms of a given landscape. The exploration of place and cultural identity present themselves as a common denominator in both his life and his photographic endeavors.

DETAILS

9 x 11 inch : (23 x 28.2 cm) hardcover with foil stamping

116 pages with 62 color plates, essay by Rich-Joseph Facun

Hard Cover, Debossed, Foil Stamp, Smyth Sewn, Case Bound

Design Direction: Caleb Cain Marcus, Luminosity Lab

ISBN 979-8-218-61402-7

Edition of 500

Published November 2025

REVIEWS

Logan Daily News

“For Facun, the inspiration to probe this relationship was a deeply personal one. When his job in the communications office of the university’s medical school was eliminated, he said, it was an emotional “gut punch” for someone who had never been laid off from a job before. It hurt like the breakup of a personal relationship, and got him thinking about the outsized role the university plays in the region and the town of Athens.”

Jim Phillips, Logan Daily News