Sonia Baez-Hernandez

Sonia Baez-Hernandez (born 1958) is a Puerto-Dominican interdisciplinary artist. She works with a wider variety of media including drawing, painting, instillations, performance art, poetry, and filmmaking. Baez-Hernandez is also a human rights activist, particularly in regard to victims of the American healthcare system.

Early life Baez-Hernandez was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on April 26, 1958. At five her family relocated to Puerto Rico after the April Revolution, part of the Dominican Civil War, in 1965. During this era, as many Puerto Ricans were migrating to the United States, Dominicans and other Caribbean nations had an influx in migration to Puerto Rico. Dominicans have a large population within Puerto Rico, which has caused a rivalry and tension between the two Latino countries for decades. She earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in painting and drawing. During diagnosed in and out patient clinic her rights to understand and discuss her treatment options had been violated. She began to document her body modification through biopsies, treatment and between surgeries, as strategies to manage the anguish of being disfranchised. She shares the struggles with the American healthcare system, both as a woman and an immigrant, reflected a human rights movement within her artwork. In 2006, she produced a film called Territories of the Breast, which documented not only her experience with her cancer treatment but the treatment of fellow patients as well. The film was given the Spirit award at the Reels Sister of the Diaspora Film Festival in New York.