Organized by ICA/Boston and co-curated by Eva Respini and Tessa Bachi Haas, this traveling survey spans nearly 20 years of Báez’s work, integrating painting, drawing, and large-scale multimedia installations. It highlights her engagement with themes of colonialism, diaspora, folklore, science fiction, and gender, rendered through intricate patterns, saturated colors, and historic map overlays. The Des Moines presentation, mounted across three architectural galleries, includes immersive environments like A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways) (2019) and her iconic portrait series exploring identity and resistance.

Organized in partnership with the Waterloo Center for the Arts, the exhibition draws from that institution’s 2,000+ piece Haitian art collection, the largest public holding in Iowa and the U.S. Co-curated by Beth Gollnick and Chawne Paige, the exhibition traces Haitian creative traditions alongside themes of diaspora, spirituality, and everyday life. It presents diverse media: painting, metalwork, sculpture, ritual objects, and drapos that weave together colonial history, African diaspora influence, and spiritual traditions within Haitian visual culture. Through generational artworks, it highlights the intersection of spiritual symbolism and daily life, positioning Iowa as an unsuspected center for preserving Haitian cultural heritage.

Báez’s richly layered work draws from colonial archives, folklore, science fiction, geography, and materials like architectural plans, star maps, and tarps. She challenges narratives of race, gender, and nationality through saturated color, pattern, and sculptural environments. Highlights include immersive installations and early, powerful self-portrait series on Yupo paper that reference the historical paper-bag test