Three Preludes to Alles zieht vorbei

By Jason K. Dy SJ

"Think 'Vergänglichkeit,' this German word, describes it better; there's not really a right translation into English. It has always been my 'wake-up call' to take risk or chance or try be more present." - Silke Lapina

Everything passes by. Everything is passing away. Everything flies by. These are some English translations of the German phrase Alles zieht vorbei.

In her three-month NEAR art residency at the Project Space Pilipinas (PSP), German-Filipino visual artist Silke Lapina has explored the transient qualities of time, place, and relations in the Province of Quezon. As a trained social anthropologist, Lapina observed the various religious practices and cultural traditions in Lucban and in Mount Banahaw; documented her engagements, reflections, dreams and visions in sketches and notes; as well as collected artefacts and mementoes.

Attentive to the fleetingness of life, Lapina's actions are intentional. As she puts it: "Each gesture stands on its own. All gestures remain connected." Yet, she also intuitively navigates the new environment with curiosity, openness, and sensitivity to places and people.

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Three interdependent participatory actions are interwoven into Lapina‘s recent solo exhibition, Alles zieht vorbei.

An hour-long communal Lenten vigil in silence, with lighted candles in an artist’s residency studio. Silent hours of several visions of Mount Banahaw: a mother cradling a figure in light, a pilgrim in a suit walking past streams of water and lava, and a medium of an elderly hilot conducting a healing session.

The artist’s body attuning with one’s interiority and nature’s energies. A gesture of solitude in communion with the mystical mountain’s syncretic spiritual traditions, its diverse ecosystems, and its historical revolutionary movements.

A circle of rice grains encircling one’s baptismal suit with revolutionary red and blue papers, chicken foot with tari (razor-sharp blade), buri palm fronds (Corypha) with tiny bells from Quiapo, and a dark clay pot with ashes of written notes; relics or artefacts of a ritual that appropriates Raunächte, a Germanic Christian tradition of twelve days of Christmastide and/or a folk belief of auspicious period between years.

The artist’s transient gesture, performative rite of momentary transitioning from the past into a new one—an exothermic and endothermic exercise. Palm Sunday initiation into a contemplative consideration of trauma and healing.

A tapestry printed with an image of a yellow-orange tattooed corpus with a crown of thorns, in a crucified pose, being unfurled in public, urban, and secular spaces. A naked portrait of a friend who had a mastectomy. A hundred Jesus Stampitas, a limited-edition print; free to take; pass it on to someone you care for. Available only at 3 p.m., the hour of great divine mercy for Catholic devotees.

The artist’s existential rummaging through human-limit experiences, such as a friend undergoing a mastectomy, the martyrdom of a folk hero, a German song about burnout, or a hybrid identity in question. In German, this human condition is referred to as Vergänglichkeit. It is an experience of human finitude, mortality, and passing away.

Postscript: Guide Questions for Considerations

Have you seen light channelled through suspended, shattered colored glass soldered into composite pieces like stained glass in cathedrals? What does this light reveal?

Did you notice the hybrid text, ‘GerBay’ (German-Baybayin) handwritten on the composite glass sculptures like a pidgin Latin recited by the healers in Mount Banahaw? What are the messages do they convey to you? Does language limit our expression of one’s lived experience; thus, do we ‘play around with words' to expound the depth of the human experience?

Why is the right arm severed from its body like the martyred folk hero Apolinario de la Cruz, a.k.a. Hermano Pule? Does the forget-me-not flower suggest resistance to forgetting an ordeal, or the resilience of forgetfulness from the burden of remembering?

How does an image of a tattooed corpus, crowned with thorns, in a crucified position affect you? Does it evoke strength amidst suffering, integral wholeness even in brokenness, or vulnerability that shames the powerful?

When everything passes away, what truly remains? What is the value of momentary gestures of human existence? What or who suffuses finitude with eternal worth?