In The Ballad (2017), Mesquita appears alongside her sculptures, as she reinvents ways of living together. Masquerading as a myriad of characters with diverse costumes and makeup, she seems to challenge our understanding of identity construction and representation, oscillating between tenderness and violence, love and vice. As her sculptures cuddle and caress her, then attack and wound her, the metallic jingling and clinking soundscape of the video gives the impression of a deliciously perverse carnival.