Convocation: Acclaimed Latina artist to share her story

RELEASED: November 5, 2007

DANVILLE, KY—Sonia Báez-Hernández will discuss her search for identity in U.S. culture, her struggles as a cancer survivor and her life as an artist on Thurs., Nov. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Vahlkamp Theatre at Centre College. Báez-Hernández will also read poetry and show clips from her documentary, Territories of the Breast.

"In this presentation, I examine the interior and exterior corporeal inscriptions of breast cancer on the flesh and on artistic expression," Báez-Hernández says. "Breast cancer means body modification, disfigurement, gender crisis, body memories, self- interrogations, all elements explored in one's journals and artwork."

Báez-Hernández was born in 1958 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and after the April Revolution her family relocated to Puerto Rico. She identifies herself as Puerto-Dominican. She holds an MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MA in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, an ABD from the European Graduate School and a BA in political science from the University of Puerto Rico.  

During 2006 she was artist-in-resident at Columbia College in Chicago, and in 2002-2003 she was a resident with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York. She also has been the recipient of other academic grants: Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Behavioral Science (1995-96); Pre-dissertation Fellowship (1993-1994); Critical Studies Fellow, Paris Program Critical Theory and Visiting Researcher at the Michel Foucault Center (1993-94), among others. 

She has exhibited her artwork, drawings, paintings and installations at numerous galleries across the United States and the world. In addition to performing and writing poetry, she has completed a documentary titled Territories of the Breast. This documentary reveals the experiences of five women, their gender crises, support systems and their problems with health inequality, artistic expressions and medical narratives.

Poetry reading
On Friday, Nov. 9 the English department will sponsor a bilingual Spanish-English poetry reading with Báez-Hernández and Mia Leonin. The event will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Evans-Lively Room on campus.

Leonin has published more than 100 articles on theater, dance and culture in Miami. She is the recipient of a Green Eyeshade Award for theater criticism and currently writes about theater and performance for the Miami Herald and the on-line magazine Category 305. She was selected to be a fellow in the 2007 NEA/Annenberg Institute on Theater and Musical Theater. Leonin’s poetry has been published in literary journals, including New Letters, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Chelsea and Witness. She has been awarded a Money for Women Grant by the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and was the recipient of a 2005 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship. Leonin is a full-time writing instructor in the creative writing program at the University of Miami. 

Art exhibit
In addition, Báez-Hernández is co-curator of Imprinted Bodies, a current art exhibit at Centre's Norton Center for the Arts. Imprinted Bodies traces the notion of embodiment or corporality in contemporary Latino/a visual art and documentary. The exhibiting artists—originally from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Colombia, along with American-born Latinos—examine the interplay between immigration, illness and ethnic relations, as well as their own participation in the formation of hybrid cultures. These experiences, involving displacement, relocation, and memories of home, uncover multi-layered disruptions of identity.

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