Stick and a Piece of ClothFilmed in the fields where I grew up in southwestern Poland. The Polish word for field—pole—shares its linguistic root with Polska (Poland), positioning the landscape as both a place and a national signifier. Reducing the national flag to its material elements—a piece of cloth and a wooden pole—it suspends the symbol between object and ideology. Drawing on movements from widely popular Tai Chi Sword practice, the pole becomes alternately a tool of balance, self-defense, or potential violence. The repeated gestures expose the fragile threshold at which patriotism hardens into nationalism.