Profile
Yhuri Cruz is a visual artist, writer, and playwright based in Brazil. Yhuri's multidisciplinary practice unfolds through collective performances, filmic works, and large-scale installations — projects he collectively titles "Cenas Pretofágicas" (The Emancipation Plays). His work interrogates structures of power, historical fictions, and the occupation of institutional spaces, while addressing repressed social and spiritual forms of violence while also engaging with critical fabulation and Black emancipatory imagination as tools for reconfiguring historical narratives and envisioning liberated futures.
Yhuri is currently developing his first international solo exhibition, scheduled for 2026 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), awarded in recognition of his receipt of the Ellsworth Kelly Award. Grounded in the ethical, aesthetic, and cosmogonic legacies of his family, his work bridges decolonial critique with both established and transgressive artistic spheres such as visual art, theater, expanded cinema, dance and music. Yhuri's works are represented in major public and private collections, including the Rio Museum of Art (MAR), the Museum of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture (MUHCAB), and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (MNBA-Habana).
