Nature Was Here inserts moss graffiti onto San Francisco Art Institute’s iconic tower. Born as a class collaboration for Ecologic, the 2012 course we created as SFAI Visiting Faculty, this piece salutes classic graffiti’s original intent by saying “you were here.” We developed the text for this work as commentary on our global environment after collaboration with Radhika Subramaniam of Parsons The New School for Design. Grounded in knowledge that nature is this planet’s original inhabitant, all materials for the moss graffiti paint were natural and collected on SFAI grounds–growing on concrete exterior walls and stairways, asphalt parking lot cracks and concrete sidewalk edges. Moss everywhere immediately proved nature persists despite modernity’s encroachments. As a class, we made the paint used by each student to write a letter on the wall. When rain water and condensation dripped down the tower, we watched our graffiti boldly spring forth, affirming hope that nature may thrive amidst globalization’s onslaught.