Mi Casa es su Casa
This project bridges the dichotomy between the rural and the city through acts of material “mestizaje”. “Mestizaje” in Spanish refers to the hybridisation of cultures. Graquandra translates this notion into a visual language that signals at her relationship between the organic and the synthetic. Alike to the position of other Mestizo’s born in Latin American Metropolitan cities which are all built on Indigenous territory.
Project details
- Year
- 2024
- Programme
- bachelor-define-art-rasl-dual-degree
- Practices
- Social Practices
- Minor
- New Earth
Inspired by the communal housing structures of the Arhuaco people’s of La Sierra Nevada, Santa Marta, Colombia and the Trinacrio of pre-Colombian rituals in what is now the Aconcagua zone in Chile, Graquandra decided to build a dome like haven. Through it’s mixed materiality, the dome intends to communicate a contrast between the external and the internal, whether applied to the social or intimate world.
Based on Anzaldúa’s Spiritual Activism and the bars of Chilean Hip-Hop Femcee Ana Tijoux, the internal structure of the dome aims to create a reflective and delicate atmosphere. Graquandra acknowledges the socio-economic structure of an industrial city encourages destructive and non-regenerative behaviours. The audience is encouraged to engage with the dome and take influence from its organic elements as translate this into their external behaviours.
The skins of the dome are made from found material. Paper mache, recycled clay, coffee are mixed by hand and later spread on top of hay and chicken wire. Each piece is completely artisanal and unique. Its materiality embraces the ethics of Rascuachismo, the Chicano aesthetic and approach which solves problems by utilising the things at their immediate disposal, una serie de movidas.
Symbolically, the coffee ground is the representation of disposable monoculture in a metropolitan context and the Earth’s fertile circular ecosystem. Coffee fuels the metropolitan into an anxious work ethic. Poetically, soil’s decay, deforestation and natural exploitation is filtered into our quotidien reality through cups of coffee. Graquandra wants to communicate and recognise the Earth’s natural resources, particularly in a metropolitan setting in order to raise awareness for more ecologically ethical behaviours in the metropolis.
Rembrandt Sudaca
Oil on Canvas
210cm x 152cm
This is a portrait taken by the street photographer, Esteban Nope in Bogotá, Colombia. Translating the raw elements captured in this street portrait into the traditional medium of oil painting, Graquandra endures an academic rigour in the resistance and representation of street culture, which is further validated in her Bachelor’s thesis.
Redirect to Erasmus University Bachelor’s Thesis
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