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The object presents itself with the immediate hostility of a spiked collar or a circular snare. Arranged in a closed loop against the white ground, an ordinary black leather belt abandons its daily function of bodily support to become a device bristling with harshness. In place of conventional steel studs or rivets, its outer circumference is rhythmically pierced by a battery of meticulously sharpened graphite pencils, whose conical tips project a piercing threat in every direction.

This material substitution unsettles any unsuspecting gaze. The yellow wooden pencil, an elemental tool of childhood learning and cognitive formulation, here assumes the ballistic morphology of cartridges in a military bandolier. The rhythm is relentless; each unit repeats the exact same scale and bevelled angle. Along the inner face of the leather, pale pink erasers compose a silent row, small seals of correction rendered powerless against the outward aggression of the opposing edge. The dark, supple surface of the strap operates as the structural axis of this imposed rigidity, sealed by the silver buckle that fixes the diameter with no possibility of escape.

In titling the work Verdad o castigo (Truth or Punishment), the childhood game of secrets and penalties becomes entwined with the memory of physical discipline. The belt makes direct reference to traditional domestic correction, while the pencil evokes the normative demands of the classroom. Yet, assembled into a self-sufficient circle that could just as easily encircle a neck as crown an absence, the piece is not exhausted by the denunciation of pedagogical rigor. It also poses a paradox regarding defense: the punitive object becomes an armor, suggesting that the scars of early demand ultimately turn into a sharpened shell that isolates the individual from the outside world.