Sharon De La Cruz
Faculty Fellow
Sharon De La Cruz is a storyteller, educator, and activist from NYC. Her research and practice are rooted at the intersection of STEM pedagogy, art, and social justice. Thanks to comic storytelling, she landed in the Tin House Summer Workshop and created her first graphic novel memoir, “I’m a Wild Seed” (Street Noise, April 2021). Kirkus Reviews called the work a “potent graphic memoir about the forming of one woman’s queer identity… [that] effectively portrays both the fears and joys of discovering one’s marginalized identity” and Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “the wit and exuberance found here marks her as a worthy new artist [in her] limber, playful debut collection.” De La Cruz received her master’s from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Processing Foundation Fellowship, a TED Residency, and a 2021-22 Red Burns Teaching Fellow at ITP-NYU. She is currently an Assistant Arts Professor at ITP-NYU.
Project Description
“Seabreeze” is a Virtual Reality experience that tells the story of Seabreeze-Freeman Beach, one of the first coastal leisure towns of the south in North Carolina. In the Jim Crow south, Blacks traveled from inside and outside the state to experience the wooden dance floors and jukeboxes. Seabreeze-Freeman Beach is part of a long legacy of lost and stolen Black ownership in the U.S. Although the archives tell us Seabreeze existed, til this day, there is no signage or public commemoration celebrating its rich history. This piece will center Black joy as resistance while recognizing the continuous intersectional injustices plaguing the Black community. The experience will include a combination of animation, interviews, photography, and audio stories of times at Seabreeze.