1310 Pendleton Street, Cincinnati Ohio 45202 513 407 7077

Artist Talk, Robert Flischel

Discussing his new book,

“What We Inherit, Documenting Poverty in

Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky & Indiana, 1900-2023.”

What We Inherit: A Chronicle of Place and Persistence

What We Inherit, edited by Robert A. Flischel, can be read as both a historical document and an emotional cartography of the American Midwest. Rooted deeply in the landscape and communities of Cincinnati and its surrounding regions, the book has been described by local critics as “a love letter to photography and to Cincinnati itself.” Beyond its visual power, it serves as a meditation on the endurance of place—the way cities and their people bear the traces of time, labor, and struggle.

The project spans more than a century of imagery, blending archival photographs with contemporary documentation to trace the continuities of poverty, work, and resilience across southern Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Indiana. Yet Cincinnati occupies a special position in this visual narrative: it is both backdrop and protagonist. Through its streets, bridges, and domestic interiors, the city becomes a mirror reflecting broader American realities. Flischel’s decision to focus on this region underscores his conviction that the most universal stories often emerge from the most specific geographies.

Many of the images in What We Inherit were taken by local photographers, including Carrie Cochran and Michael Keating, whose work lends the book its distinctive visual rhythm. Their perspectives—intimate yet unsentimental—capture the lived textures of communities long misrepresented or ignored. The collaboration between generations of photographers also transforms the book into a collective act of witnessing: an archive built through shared vision and responsibility.

Formally, What We Inherit is organized into three thematic sections—Home, Daily Life, and The Working Poor—each divided into smaller chapters that reveal the human face behind economic and social statistics. These sections guide the reader through moments of domestic tenderness, toil, isolation, and perseverance. The structure recalls the logic of ethnography but is animated by the empathy and visual poetry of photography. Through these sequences, Flischel avoids sentimentality, insisting instead on clarity and dignity.

At its core, the book challenges the illusion that poverty belongs to a distant past. By juxtaposing early twentieth-century images with scenes from the twenty-first, it reveals an uncomfortable continuity: the persistence of inequality across generations. In this sense, What We Inherit is not simply about what we receive from history, but about what we choose to preserve, to confront, and ultimately to change.

For Cincinnati, What We Inherit is more than a photographic project—it is a mirror held up to the city’s conscience. By situating local stories within a broader national framework, Flischel’s work invites viewers to see the region not as peripheral but as central to the American experience. In doing so, the book transforms photography into an act of civic remembrance and moral imagination, reminding us that what we inherit is, above all, the duty to see.

Wednesday Evening,
NOVEMBER 29TH, 2025
Light Bites & Refreshments 5:30 - 6:00 PM
Lecture 6:00 - 6:45 PM

A FOTOFOCUS PARTNERSHIP

Location

The Annex Gallery
1310 Pendleton Street
Cincinnati Ohio
45205

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