The mutually untranslated histories of botanical ignorance

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3.5 × 1.2 m · inkjet print · 2021–ongoing

This temporal diagram proposes a non-linear way of reading the biography of the cinchona tree (árbol de quina), exposing how it has been tapped by several imperial interests, and the linguistic dynamics that have structured them.

Tapping a wide pool of national archives, books and specimens from various countries and continents, this diagram consolidates a timeline that sets at odds two colonial versions of history, that tiptoes around the linguistic frontiers of Spanish, on one hand, and English & Dutch, on the other. Even though this might suggest a north/south division within the metropole, it also underlines the fact that these histories were possible only by the defacement and obscuring of original wisdoms from various indigenous communities in the Andean region.