Novena, garlic, onion, ginger and banana leaf, dimensions variable, 2022
Novena, garlic, onion, ginger and banana leaf, dimensions variable, 2022
In Patrick Cruz’s new work Novena (2022), the artist alludes to the devotional practice of nine
days of consecutive prayer that many devout Filipinx/o/a Catholics partake in, usually to
petition for special requests. For many Filipinx/os/as in the homeland and in the diaspora,
devout Catholicism is syncretically entangled with folkloric beliefs and actions. The novena, like
ancestral invocations, is predicated upon intense belief and commitment and veneration of the
sacred. Cruz adopts the role of the devotee who conjures spells and enacts prayerful actions as
a spiritual aesthetic praxis.
The artist has placed the holy trinity of Filipino food: garlic, onion, and ginger (bawang,
sibuyas, luya) on banana leaves on the gallery floor. These foods are base ingredients in
Filipino cuisine and are known for their medicinal qualities. Coincidentally, they are also used
to ward off evil supernatural forces in Philippine folklore. Arranged in the configuration
reminiscent of a mandala – a repetitive circular pattern used for meditation, Cruz’s offering
demarks a space of care that provides physical and spiritual immunity from forces seen and
unseen.
There is no “pre-colonial” or “Christianised” moment here. Unlike modernism’s progressist
march into the future, Cruz proposes an ethic of care in the present that recognizes comingling
temporalities and epistemologies that attends to the nuanced specificity of Filipinx diasporic
consciousness and spirituality. By warding off harm – both supernatural and institutional – the
artist extends his artistic practice of care to those around him to produce futures of wellbeing.
-Marissa Largo
X Marks the Spot: Filipinx Futurities
Gales Gallery / York University
July 13th – July 22nd, 2022
Artists:
Patrick Cruz X Excel Garay
Julius Poncelet Manapul X John Ephraim Velasco
Ella Gonzales X Revill Villanueva
Curated by Marissa Largo