Brandon Ruffin: Migration Patterns – Gallery Reception

On January 29, 2026, we were honored to welcome our community for the artist reception of Migration Patterns, the first solo exhibition by Brandon Ruffin. The evening include a book signing of Migration Patterns (Setanta Books. 2025), a poem read by Enjoli Flynn, and a conversation with Pendarvis Harshaw.

First introduced in the 2024 group exhibition This Must Be the Place, the project has since evolved into a powerful meditation on the enduring presence of Southern Black culture in Northern California, particularly in Oakland, San Francisco, and Ruffin’s hometown, Richmond.

Framed by Siobhan, a poem by Enjoli Flynn-Ruffin, and an accompanying essay by journalist and cultural critic Pendarvis Harshaw, the project unfolds as a lyrical meditation on legacy, migration, and the evolving meaning of home. As a descendant of Louisianans who moved west during the Great Migration, Ruffin traces how culture travels across distance and time: adapting, resisting erasure, and remaining encoded in language, movement, and ritual. Rather than offering a didactic history, the work moves with quiet intimacy, allowing Southern identity to surface through atmosphere, memory, and presence.

Woven throughout the project is a contemplative tension between life and death, arrival and departure. Ruffin lingers in the stillness of both birth and mourning, asking what it means not only to migrate across land, but across spiritual thresholds as well. Attuned to the emotional terrain of transition, Migration Patterns considers what is lost and what endures as communities shift and transform, and how those changes shape belonging. In this project, Ruffin adds a vital voice to contemporary Black photography bridging past and present, personal and communal, silence and testimony while honoring lineage and the responsibility of carrying a story forward with care.

Migration Patterns is on view now through April 4, 2026. Collector prints and publication are available. Please contact the gallery for more information.

[Left to right] Writer, educator Pendarvis Harshaw, artist Brandon Ruffin, and writer Enjoli Flynn at the artist conversation
The Gallery at Leica Store San Francisco, January 29, 2026