Demetri Broxton — Ancestral Echoes

First museum show, at MoAD, and it closes Aug 16. Louisiana Creole and Filipino, Oakland-based: he takes family photographs whose subjects were never fully named, strips the backgrounds, and rebuilds them in cowrie, sequin, bead and screen-printed cloth — adornment as armor. At the center, a mobile altar holding Carolina gold rice, cotton, sugar and living tobacco he grew himself. He refuses to fill the gaps with speculation. That refusal is the work.