Sonia Báez Hernández is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary artist, educator, curator, and art activist who inhabits intersectionality, an Afro-Latinx artist, her Latinidad, Isleñxs, inscribed in four overlapping diasporas: ancestral transatlantic, Dominican-Boricua, and her journey at the Metropolis. She senses the diaspora as a “continual, unfolding virtual experiences, aural, opacity, kinesthetic culture performance” (González). She Create between Chicago, Miami, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Báez Hernández incorporates an innovative methods and disciplines. Her body of work is inspired by the diversity of styles: surrealism, corporeal feminism, contemporary art, conceptual art, Afro-surrealism, and themes such as ecology, geopolitics, human and civil rights, alterity, intersectionality, displacement, health disparities, colonization, diásporas caribeña, borders, genocide, and corporeal art for healing. The multidisciplinary performances entails that Baez Hernandez created the concept of the performance, and choreography, integrating Lisu Vega (costume design) and Eloie Milo (vocals, music) at National Mall organized by NGO Monumental Quilt (2019). She experiments with styles and art medium: disciplines, including sculpture, choreography, creative writing and projects, vocal recording, singing, hand percussion, and a variety of styles such as surrealism, conceptual art, fiber and textile art, found objects, and photography…. Her Carcinoma series, which reveals a dialogue with breast cancer disparities, corporeal, culture of illness, and other disciplines.
Báez Hernández had an interdisciplinary BA in Social Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico. She attained an MA in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her interdisciplinary master’s thesis, “The Constitution of Graffiti as a Crime.” At the University of Los Angeles, she received the Critical Theory Fellowship to conduct her research at the Michel Foucault Center in Paris, resulting in two articles and a presentation. In Paris, she created drawings and , experimented with printmaking with artist Fernando Puig Rosado and other print-makers (1992-93). She exhibited three ink drawings at the Del Bello Gallery at the Second Annual International Miniature in Toronto, Canada (1986).
She earned an MFA in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She began her interdisciplinary practice after her MFA with the women’s group Rooted Nomad. The SAIC’s Gallery 2 selected the performance Tear Holder for the exhibition Connections (1999). This collaboration with two artists: Báez Hernández and Karen Sorensen. She was honored as an artist-in-residence with the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in Miami (2002-2004) and received the Spirit Award at the Reel for her documentary, Territories of the Breast. (2008).
She was honored with an artist-in-residence with the Service Employees International Union & Art Democracy to create installations and performances in collaboration with members from Tampa and Miami (2012). In Colorado, they performed and exhibited at the international conference. As a Visiting Fellow at the Arcus Center for Leadership and Social Justice at Kalamazoo College. She created art, curated the exhibition Embodiment and the Medical Gaze (2013–2014). She was an artist-in-residence at the International Sonoran Desert Alliance in Ajo, Arizona (2014), and at ProjectArt Miami as a Teaching Artist for elementary, middle school, and youth in temporary shelter, and in exhibitions at MOCA North Miami (2019- 2020). Baez-Hernandez’s publications, include: poetry and academic articles in NWSA Journal (2009). Baez Hernandez ‘s essay was published in The Last Artist Standing, edited by Sharon Louden (2025). She has exhibited at both the national and international levels.019- 2020).