Mi Casa Es Su Casa
2.3m x 3.9m Close up of the skins made from the mixture placed on top of the metal skeleton to create the dome.Graquandra hugging the dome.
Mixture of recycled clay, coffee waste, paper mache, hay, on top of chicken wire. Internal skeleton of metal and bamboo.
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.
Inspired by communal housing structures or a Ruka, the indigenous housing of the Mapuche peoples in Chile, the shape of a Trinacrio used in rituals in what is now the Aconcagua, or the Arhuaco housing in La Sierra Nevada, Colombia , 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.
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. She came to these conclusions reflecting on Anzaldúa’s Spiritual Activism and the bars the Femcee Ana Tijoux, internal structure of the dome aims to create a reflective while delicate atmosphere.
Graquandra holding bead cascade, with pierced coffee, corn and sunflower seeds. Hanging bead cascade from inside the dome.Outer layer of the dome, two part skin portraying the body of a girl wearing a dress that says Clitori$h.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.