Artist Mark Salvatus stages an encounter with the mystical Mt. Banahaw at the Venice Biennale 2024. By wielding his powers of assembly, he immerses the audience in sculptures and soundscapes that transform onlookers into pilgrims bound by an unshakeable belief that something good awaits them beyond the boulders.

From religion to pop culture, mountains are common metaphors for overcoming obstruction and challenges. Moses climbed a mountain to commune with God. In Alejandro Jodorowsky&rsquo;s film, The Holy Mountain, immortality-seekers had to ascend hazardous peaks. Even in fashion, Jacquemus&rsquo; La Montagne takes inspiration from the summits to mark the transition from pandemic isolation to post-pandemic gratification.
During the Venice Biennale 2024, Mark Salvatus and curator Carlos Quijon, Jr. used this enduring narrative to showcase Mt. Banahaw&rsquo;s legacy. Located between Laguna, Quezon, and Salvatus&rsquo; hometown, Lucban&mdash;the three-peaked mountain is rife with stories of faith, mysticism, and resistance.
These intersecting themes were brought to life by textile panels and fiberglass boulders that emit environmental sounds recorded by musicians. Though the Philippine Pavilion is manmade, Salvatus mounted an arrangement capturing the likeness of nature that its energy reaches the depths of our being that long for transcendence. Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito (Waiting just behind the curtain of this age) may commemorate history but it is ultimately about the future and the mysterious forces that beckon its call.

How did the project come to life?
It&rsquo;s part of my inquiry about my family, especially my grandfather who was a local historian, poet, and elementary school teacher. It&rsquo;s a good trajectory to capture because I&rsquo;m not talking about the whole nation but something local that can connect to the whole nation. It&rsquo;s about land and a mountain and how they affect different aspects of culture and society.
Can you talk about the structural elements of your installation? I came up with the title based on Hermano Puli&rsquo;s speech. He told his followers: &ldquo;Ang tagumpay ay nasa kabilang tabing lamang.&rdquo; (Success is waiting just behind the curtain.) His message is poetic as much as it is prophetic; it can be applied in various contexts.
In the pavilion, you can go around the boulders and see through fragile, translucent curtains. It expresses the idea of a stage or something that&rsquo;s just about to happen, an imminent future.
Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito (Waiting just behind the curtain of this age) delves into the ethno-ecologies of Mt. Banahaw and Lucban, drawing inspiration from the former&rsquo;s mystical energy. Are you a man of faith? What&rsquo;s your relationship with the divine?
That&rsquo;s interesting. When I was growing up, my grandmother was a church catechist. I also studied at UST which is known to be a conservative university. It&rsquo;s about belief. I&rsquo;m interested in how this belief can change in different aspects of the contemporary. Art is a way to show this. Banahaw is also not about Catholicism. It&rsquo;s all about mysticism too&mdash;the UFO, the anting-anting, the Rizalista. The mountain becomes a safe ground for different people and beliefs. It&rsquo;s like a guide and a protector for people who believe in otherworldly things.
Is that a natural interest? I noticed you also touched on the concept of agimat or anting-anting (charms, amulets, or talismans) in your previous work, Boy Agimat.
Boy Agimat is my other persona. When I arrived in Manila from the countryside, I was culture-shocked. I remember my dad advising me that if I got lost, I should find jeepneys going to Quiapo, which is the center of Manila. Quiapo became a go-to where I witnessed the synthesis of different beliefs. You&rsquo;ll find a Catholic church near a mosque surrounded by anting-anting vendors and Chinese communities. I may be far from my hometown, but with certain objects, I can still carry the energy of the mountain with me. I use the city as a playground for these energies.

PHOTO Andrea D'Altoe, IMAGE COURTESY OF NCCA - PAVB

Can you tell us more about the term &ldquo;ethno-ecologies?&rdquo;
For my current project, it&rsquo;s not limited to the ecological or the environmental parts that make Mt. Banahaw interesting. I&rsquo;m interested in how it created a life or how people formed beliefs within the area. It&rsquo;s like sneaking or wanting to smuggle yourself into the system. The uprising started there. Hermano Puli (our local hero in Quezon) wanted to become a priest but the Spanish rulers didn&rsquo;t allow indios to be priests. That&rsquo;s why he started a congregation to assemble people.
The idea of assembling or putting things together in art language like video, music, object, sculpture, sound, and print was the starting point. In an international context, the abstraction of the mountain resonated with other people even if they didn&rsquo;t know Banahaw. It&rsquo;s not didactic. It doesn&rsquo;t directly talk about the mountain, but rather, it manifests the energy or spirit of resistance during the colonial time. It also relates to how Banahaw, to this day, is resisting capitalism and is still intact. People are aware of its holiness. Its mysticism is a tool so people won&rsquo;t touch it out of fear that something bad might happen.
What do you resist?
That&rsquo;s a difficult question. In school, especially within the enclosure of a religious environment, you learn to deal with the system. After that, you want to break it. That&rsquo;s why I became an artist. You eventually realize what you resist and this resistance fuels creativity.
I don&rsquo;t want to make things that I&rsquo;ve already been doing. Styles get dated. Every time you make work, it&rsquo;s a mark. If you&rsquo;re repeating your style, you&rsquo;re just relying on what the audience is expecting you to do. You need to doubt yourself because if you don&rsquo;t doubt anymore, what else can you make? That&rsquo;s the important thing about art, you doubt. If you already know what you want to do, why will you make art? Art is something beyond ourselves. It&rsquo;s on the other side.
How do you practice art in your daily life?
I tap into my inner child, not in a childish way but in a childlike way. It means always including the element of play in my practice. Play is not about competing; it&rsquo;s about creating relationships.

What happened to the initiative 98B COLLABoratory?
98B is still around with younger artists. We had to pass it on because it needed new energies and newer visions. On the other hand, I founded the initiative, Load na Dito, with my wife Mayumi Hirano. We do exhibitions and talks, among other things. It&rsquo;s not confined to a space or location but believes in the idea of mobility to be able to circulate energy.
What fascinates you about installations?
When viewing installations, you&rsquo;re not limited to one perspective. You become part of it. It&rsquo;s also about materials and materials are connected to the condition of our time. When you think about it, painting is from the West, therefore it feels more colonial. However, installations feel more connected to us Filipinos, or perhaps, even Asians, because it&rsquo;s grounded in materials. It&rsquo;s something that allows you to assemble and disassemble. You&rsquo;re able to hold it or come closer. It&rsquo;s also temporary. It&rsquo;s like gathering people until they disperse. Installations are like that&mdash;they&rsquo;re very social.
The Filipino curator Raymundo Albano said something like it&rsquo;s closer to our innate self. For example, the Pahiyas Festival in Lucban enables people to put things together like fruits instead of just hanging framed paintings. Installations make it possible to articulate life in a bigger sense.
What&rsquo;s the next mountain to scale?
I&rsquo;m still in the same mountain but I still have to scale or climb it. There are many things to explore. From afar, you see a mountain but once you&rsquo;re inside, you can&rsquo;t see the whole picture. You have to traverse different angles. Art-making is like a pilgrimage. You don&rsquo;t stop. You continue. You explore. You rest, listen, or even crawl. It&rsquo;s like life.

Moving Mountains: Mark Salvatus

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