Words are Heavy and Things are Light : Mark Salvatus
Paper, sack, plastic chairs–weightless, light, easily toppled over. The objects are impermanent, their monetary worth is often negligible. We find paper everywhere, in schools, office spaces, stores, on the walls, and littered on the street. At the same time, paper often holds value. We learn, express, and find hope in paper. Things written down, recorded, and drawn are attempts at permanence despite the fragility of the material. Finding liberation, at the same time our oppressions are printed, distributed, posted, littered, and decomposed.
Fragility can hold weight–food, resources, and salvation packed in brightly colored sacks. Rice, once abundant in the islands, is now imported. The reality of our social conditions is presented in a cheerful plastic embrace. Flowers evoke lightness and beauty, yet the whisper of scarcity, a sense of loss, and the removal and disavowal of truth and comfort are present. There is hunger where fullness once resided. Distance is more palpable instead of the familiar.
How can we make sense of the world–of rest and restlessness? Of fragility and breakability? Precarity is everywhere, but the remnants much like plastic are permanent. The changes are embedded in earth, water, and air–in what we eat, drink, and breathe. Yet our current state places us in a balancing act, at risk of crashing with a strong enough push. Our position and our stakes reveal persistent threats.
Mark Salvatus collects seemingly disparate objects that reveal our unshakeable condition of insecurity and discomfort. Placing them together in quiet contemplation demands a reflection of our times, history, and possible futures. Finding threads in the disconnected materials reveals the stories, disjunctures, and perils. Sit, feel, and see–the results and threats of our labor conditions, food security, job prospects, and experiences of seemingly small but violent cuts in our society.
Gathering the objects is an invitation for a gathering of people. The materials can be touched and felt–moved as we move. Where nothing and nowhere is secure, what anchors us is shared struggle. Production is an evolving process, gathering what is difficult to grasp, attempting to find possibilities in-between.
Words by Portia Placino