From Jiminy Cricket, through the education system rooted in a culture of hard work and Rocky Balboa’s rise to the top, to assembly-line work, “Retrato de una cerilla” explores the personal and collective origins of self-imposed pressure through documentary, archival, and staged imagery. Is self-imposed pressure a positive thing? Are we naturally this way, or have we simply ended up this way? Can we stop being this way? And, most importantly, do we want to stop being this way?