Bay Area artist Demetri Broxton wanted to tell a story with “Ancestral Echoes,” a solo show at MoAD. Specifically, he wanted to illustrate how the Second Great Migration brought his family to the Bay Area.
What he did not want to do, however, was use the show —which runs through August 16 as part of MoAD’s annual Emerging Artists Program — to tell the complete story. By design, what the artwork reveals is akin to a book that seems to be missing several chapters.
Immediately upon entering the gallery, a viewer can’t miss a series of hand-made wall tapestries that reappropriate old family photos. “Just Beyond the Waters” (2025) uses a photo of the artist’s grandfather, a U.S. Army veteran, sitting with his infant daughter (the artist’s mother) in his lap. Japanese and Czech glass beads adorn the subjects’ clothing, with both their faces covered in ad hoc veils of quartz. Outside of the silhouette of the two subjects, the background has been completely obscured by blue sequins to create a flowing-wave backdrop.
A similar effect emerges from “A Family Tie Is Like a Tree; It Can Bend But It Cannot Break” (2026), which uses beads to create a nighttime tree-covered backdrop over a photo of a family member standing beside the family car. Here, too, the subject’s face is veiled by quartz. The effect is regal. In this context, the car is practically a pharaoh’s chariot.
The concealment of eyes is a common theme. “He Who Holds Me to the Soil, Holds Himself as Well” (2026) and “He Sits in a Universe of the Unknown” (2024) cover their male subjects’ eyes with pieces of brass, and surround their background with coin-shaped gold pieces. This time, the concealment gives off a grim tone that suggests an impending funeral for the subject, with coins expected to cover the eyes. Not surprising, seeing as how the specter of death was ever-present for Black Americans before the civil rights era.
That sense of threat may explain why boxing is so prominent throughout the show. Displayed at the front of the gallery is “Count Me Out” (2023), a pair of boxing gloves covered in cowrie shells, for maximum damage. Red coral and green quartz on the back help spell out a bloody one-two punch: “I Love it When…” on one glove, and “You Count Me Out” on the other. The gloves are locked together by a stainless steel chain, alluding to when African “migration” to The New World wasn’t a matter of choice.
Pugilism is also featured in the tapestry “The Anger of the Rain Doesn’t Beat the Peace of the Storm” (2026), where a wall-sized still of a boxer is adorned with red, white, and blue beads, evoking Apollo Creed from the “Rocky” films. Another piece, “Cooler Heads Prevail” (2023) repurposes a boxing helmet to accompany its similar robe, “You Won’t Break My Soul” (2023). All the aforementioned blur the line between athletic gear and armor. After all, what did Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali do if not fight wars in the squared circle?
A completionist may find it irksome trying to follow the broken timeline of Broxton’s family’s travels. We’re told through the text on the wall that their journey began in Louisiana before drifting to Texas, and then to Florida before finally planting stakes in Oakland. Yet, the pieces raise more questions about the journey than they answer. Were the photos taken in Texas? Did the unnamed boxer in Broxton’s photos fight in Florida? Broxton’s intentional redaction of his family’s pilgrimage brings its own frustrations.
In one corner of the gallery is “What is Buried Still Feeds the Tree” (2026) — an altar featuring framed photos of relatives — this time, with their faces visible — amongst tributes of fresh-picked cotton, tobacco, and rice. Visitors are encouraged to write down tributes to their own ancestors and place them in a basket below.
It’s this sort of reverence for those who came before that gives Broxton’s work genuine emotional weight. But if you’re curious as to how his family got from Point-A to Point-B, the Oakland-based artist is happy to leave you wanting.
MoAD’s “Demetri Broxton: Ancestral Echoes” runs through Aug. 16 at the Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St.
