Joseph J. Allen, Hakikta Exhibition Opening

Hakikta (“to look back” in Dakota) presents an overview of the thirty-year career of Joseph J. Allen, on view at the Winona County History Center through June 9, 2024. Joseph is a photographer whose celebrated engagement with Native land and people has been exhibited in spaces such as the Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota Historical Society, and Plains Art Museum. Joseph's photography was featured in the In Our Hands: Native Photography, 1890 to Now exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Joseph J. Allen's photographs are in the collections of the Weisman Art Museum, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the C. N. Gorman Museum at UC Davis. He is a past recipient of a McKnight Photography fellowship, an alumnus of Intermedia Arts’ Creative Community Leadership Institute, a 2012 Blandin Reservation Leadership fellow, and a Springboard for the Arts’ 20/20 Artist Fellow in 2020.

Joseph serves on the board of the Manoomin Arts Initiative and is a former board member of the Region 2 Arts Council. He is currently the director of the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator in Mahnomen, MN—a project of the White Earth Nation’s economic development division. Gizhiigin supports Indigenous artists by providing services and resources to advance their artistic and entrepreneurial goals.

Born in Eagle Butte, SD, Joseph is a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate. He is also a descendant of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation, where he lives in the Sugarbush Township. 

Joseph J. Allen's Spillway Fellowship is supported by the Chicago Community Foundation. Art of the Rural is grateful for the generous support of the Winona Community Foundation in making this exhibition possible.