(Pasyon and Revolution) / 1983 / Mixed media installation / 135 x 324 x 54 cm / Artist: Santiago Bose / Bose Family Collection

A restless experimenter in media, Bose was among the first artists to make full use of indigenous materials. Inspired by the nativist cults of Mount Banahaw, Bose did this installation using indigenous and organic materials. A mystic altar stands upon a background of dried tree branches massed together to form an improvised chapel, as in the forested slopes of the holy mountain. Above it, like a colorful retablo (structures for religious images), are three vertical banners filled with Christian religious imagery indigenized into the Philippine setting and characterized by the sacralization of secular heroes associated with the Philippine Revolution against Spain, like Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. The imagery also includes the native and unorthodox representation of the Holy Trinity as three co-equal figures seated in a row and the image of a babaylan or precolonial priestess-shaman above episodes of the anticolonial struggle done in a folk style. Above all this, a native saint, astride a horse and brandishing a bolo, rides off to the revolution. On both sides of the altar are displays of the flag as it evolved from the early Katipunan banners to the present national symbol of sovereignty. Part of the installation are the lighted tapers in front and on the side of the altar.