Halo-Halo

Halo-Halo brings together the intersecting worlds of Deshon Smith’s identity as a Filipino adoptee, a person raised in rural southwest Wisconsin and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. The title draws on the Tagalog expression meaning “mix-mix”, turning mixture into a language of self-definition rather than fragmentation. Through vivid colour, repeated faces and layered portraiture, Smith traces the personal changes and growth of the past year. Cultural memory, queer pride and lived experience occupy the same visual field, while the work resists the idea that identity must resolve into a single story. Instead, the self appears continually assembled, remembered and claimed.