Associate Professor Jimmie Allen’s photographic work has been selected for inclusion in “Exposure 2023” at the Photographic Resource Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The exhibit was juried from an international pool of artists from an open call. Allen was one of ten artists chosen from over 160 submissions, and of the five works Allen entered, four were accepted into the show.

The juror for the exhibit was Shana Lopes, Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Allen’s work is part of a ten-year project to document rural Missouri by photographing at least one small town in each of the state’s 114 counties. During a recent sabbatical, he ended up photographing 217 Missouri towns.

“A lot of research went into the project,” Allen said. “This included collecting census data on small-town populations and demographics.”

In his statement accompanying his submissions to the exhibition, Allen explained that Missouri’s small-town communities, “like many across the country, currently face many challenges including an increasing poverty rate and a decline in population as people leave rural agricultural areas for urban fringe areas.”

By capturing these places through his photography, Allen explained he wanted to “reveal a contemporary sense of place and culture as well as the impact which politics, economics, education, race, and religion have on the people that live in these small communities.”

A discussion of Allen’s work appears in The Boston Globe.

More of Allen’s work and his artist statement can be viewed at JimmieAllen.com.

Allen has been a member of the art and design faculty since 2007.

If you would like additional information about the photography program at Missouri State University, contact the department at 417-837-2330.

News written by Mariah Hunter, edited by Reynolds College Communications Team. Photos by Jimmie Allen.

Mariah Hunter is a graduate assistant for the Department of Art and Design. She is working towards her master’s degree in writing at Missouri State University.