I LOVE MY CITY: Photographs by Rachele Schneekloth

November 6 - December 20, 2025

Black Rock Arts is pleased to present I LOVE MY CITY, an exhibition of photographs by Rachele Schneekloth. This is Rachele's first solo exhibition in Buffalo.

For the past five years (and counting) Rachele Schneekloth has photographed her fellow Buffalonians on the streets of their neighborhoods, with a particular emphasis on the city's West Side. She is known to many in the community as "the picture lady" and chances are you've seen her on the streets, roving by bike or on foot, camera in hand, engaging her neighbors. Her vast trove of photographs offers a sweeping, humanistic portrait of our city, one that lays bare our joys and sorrows and delights in our shared humanity.

Rachele is a self-taught photographer and a founding educator and librarian at Buffalo's Elmwood Village Charter School. Her photographic project began in earnest during the COVID-19 shutdown, after participating in a teacher caravan that traveled to every Buffalo zip code, visiting every child from her school. Though Rachele was raised in Buffalo, it was only during these daily caravans that she came to appreciate the vastness of the city and the diversity of its neighborhoods. Traveling daily with the caravan also made plain the extent of Buffalo's economic and racial segregation. For Rachele, this experience begged the question: When the going gets tough, who gets left behind, and why?

Armed with a camera, Rachele set out to find answers. Drawn to what she calls "places without privilege, without pretense," Rachele photographs those among us whom society has largely ignored. While she often documents people who are struggling – be it with money, addiction or isolation – these are not images of despair. Her photographs are joyful and oftentimes outright funny. Rachele coaxes us into deeper looking, leading us to find dignity and beauty in the complex, brave, resilient people around us. Her pictures implore us to engage in "the radical act of turning toward each other, seeing each other with wonder and compassion and appreciation, so that we may emerge stronger together with love and community on the other side."

This work expands upon the legacy of another Buffalo documentarian, the late Milton Rogovin, whose photographs of the so-called "forgotten ones" likewise sought to recognize the poor, the mistreated, the unlucky, the misfits, those without power or a voice in the wider community. Like Rogovin, Rachele's work is driven by curiosity about her fellow humans and the desire to address what she sees as our society's "failure of empathy." Also like Rogovin, Rachele is no one's savior. She is clear-eyed about the limits of so-called art in effecting broader change in our world. What she can offer is her love for her city and its people, manifested in her unadorned document of our community at this moment.

Come to Black Rock Arts and see Buffalo. I LOVE MY CITY opens to the public Thursday, November 6, with a reception from from 5 to 8PM. The exhibition remains on view through December 20. Gallery hours are Saturdays, noon to 4PM, and by appointment.

All are welcome!