The Halls of Ink is a living archive of tattoo history, built and kept by Dakota, a tattoo ethnographer, documentary filmmaker, and apprentice tattoo artist. This is where the art, the artists, and the cultures behind them are documented before they are lost.
Preserving and celebrating tattoo culture through curation, documentation, and connection.
The Halls of Ink holds records on over 1,900 tattoo artists across 78 countries, alongside studios, conventions, a rare book library, and a growing archive of indigenous tattooing traditions.
It is one project, built by one person, across a directory, a documentary series, and a foundation.
Colonization erased tattoo traditions across much of the world. This work exists to help reverse that, one archive entry, one documentary, and one restored tradition at a time.
The Halls of Ink Foundation directs 15% of every merch sale toward indigenous communities reclaiming their tattoo culture.
A directory of the world's tattoo artists, studios, and conventions, built to be searched and explored.
A social layer for collectors to track the artists they have worked with and the ones they hope to.
A curated collection of the finest tattoo books and literature. 125+ volumes and growing.
The Hall of Indigenous Traditions documents hand tapped and ancestral tattooing practices from the communities that still carry them.
This is preservation work done in partnership with the people whose traditions are being recorded, not extraction of it.
Life Beyond Ink is a documentary series where Dakota sits with some of the world's most significant tattoo artists to record their stories on film, before those stories are gone.
Dakota is currently apprenticing under @filouino at Atelier Le Filou in Horb am Neckar, Germany, learning the craft from the inside rather than only documenting it from the outside.
Support the Foundation directly, or shop Inked Abroad merch, where 15% of every purchase funds indigenous tattoo reclamation. Patreon supporters get behind the scenes access to the films and the archive as it grows.
For inquiries about tattoos, business, filming, or anything else, reach info@inkedabroad.com directly. Every message reaches Dakota.
Email info@inkedabroad.com