Mark SALVATUS

Mark Salvatus, b.1980, Philippines

The Filipino artist Mark Salvatus works with an array of mediums and fields. He directly and indirectly uses objects, photography, videos, installations, and participatory projects to present different outcomes of energies, meanings, and experiences. His overall artistic practice can be referred to as “Salvage Projects,” which corresponds to his surname. It is his endeavor to deal with the everyday politics he encounters as well as the fragments of the blurred and complicated narratives of country and history.

That Day Most Eagerly Awaited was created by the artist during his home quarantine for COVID-19. The text is based on a short story the artist’s grandfather published in a Philippine magazine, telling the story of a hermit and a golden bull that lived in Mount Banahaw in Quezon province on the Luzon Island. Through video, archival materials, murals, and children’s drawings, Salvatus constructs a world unfolded from a home space. Incorporating local folklore and history, it conveys people’s communal yearnings for nature. Here, it is as if time dissolves into space, wherein the apparently special circumstances also imply people’s longing for change. (S.H)