FYE's Contemporary Visual Language Lecture Series presents an artist talk by IS '20 alum, Taína Cruz. TAíNA H. CRUZ (b. 1998, New York) lives and works in New Haven. Across painting, sculpture, installation, and video, she builds immersive worlds where figures, objects and animals inhabit charged architectural spaces, staging acts of becoming. Drawing on African American and Caribbean traditions and shaped by coming of age within networked image culture, Cruz approaches identity as fluid and iterative. Her work stages moments of transformation where folklore and contemporary visual systems overlap and evolve. Relevant exhibitions include MoMA PS1, New York (2026); The Whitney Biennial, New York (2026); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2025); MMK Frankfurt (2025); Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2024); MoMA PS1, New York (2023); Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2023, solo); Studio Mondial, Berlin (2023); Martos Gallery, New York (2023); Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin (2023); Housing Gallery, New York (2022, solo); Embajada, San Juan (2022, solo); Housing Gallery, New York (2021); New Release Gallery, Online (2020); The Gormley Gallery, Baltimore, (2020). Cruz received an MFA from the Yale School of Art (2025) and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2020), as well as the GO-A: Goya Opportunity Award in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2019), and was featured on the MICA Dean’s List from 2016–2020.