A sneak peek of the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale 2026 with Jon Cuyson’s ‘Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig’

Gladstone, who describes herself as a “child of diaspora”, brings a vital theoretical framework to the exhibition: archipelagic thinking. This perspective reimagines postcolonial geography, viewing islands not as fragmented and isolated lands, but as intimately connected ecologies.

“This engenders a way of being that innately understands oceans not as spaces of tumult but as places of potential and opportunity,” Gladstone shares. She emphasises that the Filipino story has always been rooted in the context of travel, prompting a profound question: “What is diaspora when someone leaves point A only to return after being on global waters? What is part of our culture that travels beyond our bodies, yet leaves traces?”

For the curator, the answer resides in the deeply ingrained Filipino culture of care and community. Indigenous Filipino concepts such as bayanihan (communal unity), kalinga (care), aruga (nurture) and malasakit (compassion) constitute the emotional foundation of the exhibition. These fundamental ways of being are not signs of colonial repression but ancestral traits that make Filipino workers highly valued worldwide.

Central to Cuyson’s 30-year artistic practice—which spans painting, sculpture and moving image—is a unique conceptual and material focus on the humble mussel. Rooted in queer and postcolonial ecologies, the artist elevates the mollusc from a simple motif to a guiding philosophy.

“Mussels are part of my everyday memory. They were food before they became material or method, prepared by my grandmother, shared at home and tied to care and sustenance,” Cuyson reflects.

Read more: Mark Salvatus unveils the ethno-ecologies of Mt Banahaw and Lucban for the Philippine Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale

In the context of the Biennale, the mussel symbolises the endurance of the Filipino worker. “Their ways of attaching, clustering and filtering mirror forms of Filipino endurance and relational survival within global maritime systems,” he explains. Much like mussels clinging to ship hulls, Filipino seafarers sustain global commerce whilst remaining largely invisible.

This “mussel thinking”, coined by the artist, shifts the viewer’s focus away from grand spectacle and towards relation, survival and ecological responsibility. The exhibition even features a commissioned short experimental film, Sea of Echoes, developed through immersive research and conversations with mussel farmers, marine scientists at the University of the Philippines and aquaculture experts.

The physical manifestation of Sea of Love is as deliberate as its conceptual underpinnings. Located in the Artiglierie within the Arsenale—a venue historically steeped in its own maritime labour and production—the installation is entirely site-specific.

Cuyson’s paintings do not merely hang on walls; they function as the architecture itself. “The freestanding panels define boundaries, regulate sightlines and choreograph how viewers move through the pavilion,” he notes. These structures are meticulously scaled to the openings of shipping containers, subtly referencing the infrastructure of global trade without being overtly literal.

Remarkably, the entire exhibition was designed to fit perfectly into a single 40-foot-long shipping container—a logistical triumph that doubles as an elegant nod to the geometric sensibility for which Cuyson is celebrated.

Within this carefully crafted environment, four short films play in sequence, ensuring that the voices of the diverse protagonists—a sailor named Kerel, his trans partner Mutya in the provinces, Nanay Cleo in the forests, and the ocean itself—are given equal prominence.

“The paintings could not become backdrops to the films,” asserts Gladstone. “Instead, the monitors operate like punctures and gaps, sharing intimate thoughts and personal moments, breaking up the never-ending horizon.” The integration of queer love alongside familial love complicates traditional notions of masculinity and highlights the inclusive nature of Filipino care.

As visitors wander through the Arsenale, guided by the glow of screens and the ambient light reflecting off metallic painted surfaces, they are invited to engage in a sensory rather than purely intellectual experience

Cuyson hopes the international audience will recognise the silent, widespread presence of Filipino workers. He draws a poignant comparison to the Biennale itself: “Filipino seafarers continue to crew the ships that move goods, images and artworks across oceans, including those that arrive at international exhibitions like the Biennale. In that sense, the Biennale itself is already entangled with Filipino maritime labour, even when that labour remains largely unseen.”

Gladstone echoes this sentiment, urging the global art community to recognise these invisible hands. “Consider that their hands have moved almost every artwork in the Venice Biennale,” she points out.

As the opening takes place this month, Sea of Love stands as a testament to the power of subtlety and the strength found in vulnerability. It is an exhibition that does not shout its historical arguments, but rather whispers its truths through the rustle of a byssal thread and the ambient sound of coastal waters.

“Before the Pavilion opens, I would like to invite the public to approach the work with slowness and openness,” Cuyson imparts.

“It is an exhibition meant to be inhabited through listening, sensing, wandering and allowing fragments to surface in their own time… The pavilion is less an answer than an invitation: to stay with what drifts, what endures and what binds us across water, distance and time.

For visitors exploring the expansive and often overwhelming Venice Biennale this year, the Philippine Pavilion provides an essential refuge. It serves as a space to stop, relax and connect with the subtle, enduring waves of a genuine sea of love.

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