Like much of Brazil's population, I am the product of many nationalities. My story echoes with voices from the past. Earning a degree in Conservation and Restoration led me to study cultural heritage, a pillar in shaping and maintaining a nation's values. This experience deepened my appreciation for history and culture, which now inspires much of my creative process.

The way I found to express my Brazilianness is by exalting exactly what makes us so unique - our miscegenation. I believe the history of a country is written by real people who fight and occupy streets and public spaces. With this in mind, I wanted to use the figure of Portuguese and Italian immigrants as inspiration for some compositions. For instance, I have grandparents who came from Portugal in the 20th century and ancestors from Southern Italy, both of whom crossed the ocean to work as labourers in Brazil. In the composition “Heroes of the Past,” I used the figures of a woman and a man, both in humble attire and who recently came from Portugal to Brazil, to represent my grandparents. Additionally, our culture is heavily influenced by Amerindians and Afro-descendants, ethnic groups whose cultures have developed through oral tradition. My family also carries influences from these people, especially my grandfather, a close descendant of indigenous peoples from Northeast Brazil. His main activity for much of his life was sea fishing. The activity of Brazilian fishermen is well known for being accompanied by strong popular religiosity (religious syncretism), a result of the mixing of peoples, as well as by storytelling filled with mystery and spirituality. To honour him, I wanted to create a composition called “Life that Flows from the Waters.” This work represents an elderly man and a child fishing in a small boat, something we did together when I was a child, when he would tell me his stories. To this day, fishing remains a common form of subsistence for the population of Brazil's coastal region, largely due to indigenous heritage.