Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig
Artist Talk with Jon Cuyson
An event by the Island Tides Initiative - Department of Artistic Strategie
Paglalayag,
meaning sailing or voyaging in Filipino, is a traveling series of screenings, conversations, and gatherings that grew out
of Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig, the exhibition for the Philippine Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, curated
by Mara Gladstone and developed in dialogue with Jose Mari Cuartero. Conceived as a continuation
rather than a conclusion, the Paglalayag carries the questions of Sea of Love beyond Venice. Like a voyage, it takes shape
through the places it reaches and the people it meets. Each gathering becomes a temporary harbor for listening, sharing stories,
and exchanging ideas.
The conversation includes a screening of Sea
of Echoes, an experimental short film narrated from the perspective of mussels living within a mussel farm in Cavite
City. Their voices open questions about labor, ecology, survival, and care across human and more than human worlds.
Jon Cuyson is a Filipino artist and filmmaker working across painting, sculpture, installation, sound,
and moving image. His work explores maritime histories, migration, labor, queer experience, memory, and ecology, often returning
to the sea as a place where personal and collective histories meet. Cuyson is the artist for the Philippine Pavilion at the
61st Venice Biennale, where his exhibition Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig approaches the sea as a living archive
of migration, desire, labor, and belonging.
An important thread in his work is Pag-iisip Tahong (Mussel
Thinking), which draws on filtration, clustering, and adaptation to consider survival through relation. These ideas extend
into Sea of Love: Paglalayag Series, a traveling program of screenings, conversations, and gatherings that allows the work
to continue evolving through encounters with different places and communities.
