When All Grounds Are Sacred

A dug hole can mean a lot of things. It could be a site for foundation, destruction, or grave. JC Jacinto explores this image which has become prevalent within our immediate surroundings; an image that has nearly become part of the Filipino consciousness.

There is not an instance nowadays where the travels of the city-dweller are not accompanied by this sight. There has not been any street of late that lies untouched by objectives that stem from either demolition or organization. JC Jacinto attempts to divulge visually the ironies that can be found among both concepts. Such as how, in demolition and destruction, motives are really directed towards creation and improvement; and how, in the desire for organization and rehabilitation, the road, literally speaking, would always be paved with bouts against chaos and misery.

In When All Grounds Are Sacred, Jacinto presents a visual catalogue for the ramifications incurred from what has virtually become a requisite for city life—dealing with street repairs and excavations. These are presented in an ominous yet captivating atmosphere that defines JC Jacinto’s art. His paintings, sculptures, and installations transmit a somber mood. Dark and hazy, but at the same time revelatory with its poignant handling of themes, where a sense of foreboding ensues, inviting us to look closer into scenes we may have taken for granted.

He does this via transformation—by defamiliarizing the commonplace. He does this by maximizing the effects of ambiguity, as demonstrated in some of his paintings involving sites of excavations and constructions. He pursues this by discreetly inserting characters that are seemingly out of place: a robed clerical figure mounted on heavy machinery, men in suits milling around a ditch, and workers standing about with vague tasks surrounding a digging site. These anomalous yet subdued juxtapositions present the kind of quiet desperation felt when trying to make sense of the symbols of ‘progress.’

In another group of paintings and sculptures, a different kind of direction towards ambiguity is used. By using light—as both formal and symbolic element—he adds a different dimension to the existence of these holes. From mere excavations they suddenly turn into hallowed grounds. There is light emanating from a dug furrow; there is fire blazing from a pit. There are faint traces of glow surfacing from inside a slab of concrete. These resound the ambivalence that surrounds these diggings: whether they are symbols of the city’s rebirth or are merely hordes of open graves. In Jacinto’s own words he observes, “Looking closely, there really is no difference between the act of construction and the preparation for death, between destruction and progress.”

In an installation involving shovels that are presented to mimic the structure of tombstones, he marvels at the irony that can be cast through objects: “The act of digging itself becomes ironic through the tool we employ. It is amazing how the shovel can symbolize the shape of a tombstone, which makes itself its own marker, buried by its own doing.”

Could this be the underlying concept that surrounds Jacinto’s works in When All Grounds are Sacred? That we have been digging our own graves all along for the sake of creation, progress, or survival? Through whatever aspect or circumstance we formulate our interpretations, one thing remains clear for Jacinto, and it is that these diggings have become part of the daily spectacle and have become the norm in most places, like in his own town of Cainta. And whatever permeates through our daily consciousness has the ability to seep into the inner recesses of the psyche. And through these sightings we develop the power to draw associations, to link them with one of its most archetypal symbols, which is the grave. And it is with this perpetual cycle that the streets of Manila serve as its metaphor, where the process of digging, constructing, replacing—and digging once again never ends.