José Diego Reina's "Laboratorio (Ensayo 2)", executed in oil on canvas in 2021, portrays the quiet deterioration of a Cuban scientific workspace, extending the artist's examination of institutional abandonment. The composition features a row of elongated workbenches extending into the depth of the room, cluttered with an assortment of tools, apparatus, and scattered materials that hint at halted experiments and forgotten inquiries. Large windows along the left wall admit soft, natural light from an exterior landscape of trees and foliage, contrasting the interior's muted tones and evoking a sense of isolation from the vibrant world beyond. The rear wall displays remnants of educational or operational aids—faded posters, a tattered map, and pinned notices—while overhead fluorescent fixtures dangle unevenly from a grid ceiling, casting subtle shadows that accentuate the accumulation of dust and minor structural failures. Through meticulous brushwork capturing textures of worn surfaces and diffused illumination, the piece conveys the erosion of mid-20th-century infrastructural ambitions in Cuba, underscoring the impacts of economic isolation and resource depletion on scientific progress following the dissolution of Soviet support.