[3] During the 1970s, Andrade was a part of a circle of young artists which included Fernando Cocchiarale, Anna Bella Geiger, Ivens Machado and Leticia Parente that began to respond to the severe period of censorship under the military dictatorship in Brazil through intense productions of individual expression through a simple, direct body language.
[4] Many of Andrade's early videos feature her performing awkward and painful actions to invoke thought about torture practices employed by the Brazilian government during the dictatorship.
In Untitled (1975), Andrade sat at a table eating a traditional Brazilian meal of black beans, smoked pork, ad sausages with a television set broadcasting an American sitcom and commercials in the background.
The previously harmless television is featured as a source of misery and oppression as the artist begins smearing the beans on her head; shoving them into her mouth with her hand; wiping them on her eyes, ears, and inside her clothes; and ultimately, throwing them at the lens until the scene is obliterated.
In these provocative pieces, Andrade deformed her face with threads, fixed her hand to a table with wire and nails, and removed body hairs with scissors.