From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Wangi ng Pili—A Fragrant Retablo from Manila
This article is about the Manila-based retablo-fragrance work. For related Philippine and Peruvian retablo traditions in Beach Surgery adaptation, see Peruvian retablo and La Cicatriz Que Huele—Retablo Boxes of Ayacucho (2020–ongoing).
A traditional retablo—a three-dimensional painted wooden shrine native to Peru and adapted throughout the diaspora—reconstructed as an olfactory object. “The retablo does not hang on a wall. You approach it as a cabinet of fragmented worlds.”
Wangi ng Pili stages the wild boar released in Chapter 5 as the work's central motif and metaphorical engine. The front panel depicts Katita and Leif in brightly painted profile, with the boar emerging between them, mouth open. Opening the cabinet reveals three nested chambers: the first exhales sampaguita—the Philippines' national flower, connected to flight and delicate refusal; the second releases sharp iron-rust corresponding to blood and desert; the third holds dried coconut husk infused with synthetic boar-musk, barely perceptible until the visitor leans close.
The collective describes the work as a "fragrant archive of refusal"—the boar's liberation staged as Katita's refusal of the mechanical cycle, the taming, the eternal return. Toured Southeast Asian festivals 2023–24; gifted to the National Arts Centre, Manila . Related to but distinct from the Ayacucho retablo cycle.