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From the primary stages of Graquandra’s life, she lived in colonised capital cities of Latin American countries. Given lands carry history, abundance of nature and biodiversity interupted by dense metropolitan, mono-cultured urban terrain. Due to imperialised capitalist governments the current zeitgeist causes a deflection for biodiversity and existence of (non)human life. Meanwhile the preservation of indigenous and wild-life is a cause of immediate concern, not only for Latin America but the planet as a whole.

Espigueo, Lost in Translation was an opportunity for Graquandra to rewrite epistemic colonisation, a deflection from reclaiming ancestral knowledge, through a circular method of artistic creation through her positioning. Ecological and social commons are about giving back to the natural descent of given extraction, although the privatisation of the commons has silenced such reality.

Caucho, which means rubber in Spanish, is an adaptation of the Quechuan word káuchu which means tears from the tree. The poem illustrates the conditions of rubber plantations at Casa Arana, a house of slavery and exploitation of people and the land. The poem is letter pressed with an ink made from the ashes of monotype printed money bills. The visual explorative process is a symbol of hypocrisy towards the diplomatic representations of political national identity. Money bills carry symbols of nature, wild-life and cultural heritage while capitaism leads to a complete annihilation of the aforementioned. The bills were burned in the clay pot in front of the World Trade Center in Rotterdam, as a form of public intervention and spiritual activism. Only through spirituality can we reconnect our balance with nature, our surroundings and ancestors.