In the video, a hand gradually removes, one by one, the aculeus (superficial spikes) that inhabit the trunk of the Pau-Brasil tree. When the tree is young, the spikes are very effective in warding off predators, serving as a natural defense while it grows, when they naturally drop and the Pau-Brasil turns into a leafy tree.

The tree is identified with the constitution of our nation, having been a resource exploited to exhaustion. In a way, it was this tree that gave the name to our country. Pau-Brasil is a little-known tree, barely seen in the Brazilian landscapes.

The sound of the forest that fills the atmosphere of the video in the first few minutes gives way to an artificial, mechanical noise, as the natural characteristics of the plant and of the forest change.

A simple but extremely violent action, reflecting the “civilizational process” during which everything that defined the identity of these lands and our ancestral culture were suppressed.

Like the making of wood planks, without grooves or any imperfections, we continue in an eternal dispute between keeping the roots that identify us as a nation or surrendering to dominant influences, global and foreign, that slowly erase what we have of most valuable.