The Philippine Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale presented Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito / Waiting just behind the curtain of this age, an exhibition by artist Mark Salvatus curated by Carlos Quijon Jr.
The project centred on Mount Banahaw and its place within Filipino spiritual, cultural and political history.
A mountain as cultural landscape
Located a few hours from Metro Manila, Mount Banahaw has long been associated with pilgrimage, sacred traditions and communities seeking spiritual or political refuge.
The exhibition approached the mountain not simply as a geographic subject but as a landscape carrying overlapping histories and beliefs.
Its references ranged from the revolutionary figure Hermano Puli to pilgrimage traditions, local artists and the marching-band culture of Lucban.
Nature, spirituality and artistic memory
Salvatus used those histories to explore ideas of life force and mysticism.
The project also considered the relationship between people and the natural environment, presenting Mount Banahaw as both a protected ecosystem and a site shaped by cultural memory.
Quijon’s curatorial framework brought these strands together without separating folklore, politics, spirituality and contemporary art into distinct categories.
Waiting just behind the curtain of this age used the Philippine Pavilion to examine how a particular landscape can hold many forms of memory at once, from sacred belief and collective history to contemporary artistic interpretation.