COLUMN: Viewpoint – Meaning in nativity scenes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/12/2020 (1597 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Italian artist Genny Di Virgilio has created an elaborate nativity scene reflecting our current reality. Mary and Joseph and even the stable animals wear masks. The Magi stand socially distanced from each other. Di Virgilio has added a doctor and nurse to the nativity scene. He says they are the world’s current saviors. Only the infant Jesus remains unchanged.

Last year I introduced hundreds of Winnipeg Art Gallery visitors to a nativity scene called Res House. Created by artist Kent Monkman it was part of his extensive Canadian Indigenous history exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience.

The Res House nativity scene is set on a northern reserve in a house literally falling apart. Jugs of bottled water stand behind Joseph who is wearing a Chicago Black Hawks jersey, reminders there is still a boil water directive in some First Nation communities and that the appropriation of Indigenous language and imagery for sports teams is controversial.

Jesus lies on a Hudson’s Bay blanket and Mary holds a rosary with a beaver instead of Christ on the cross a reference to the way the fur trade and the coming of Christian missionaries changed the lives of Canada’s Indigenous people forever. The painted backdrop of the installation shows priests and RCMP officers dragging a screaming child off to residential school. I led dozens of tours of Shame and Prejudice and it was not uncommon to see tears in viewer’s eyes as they processed the meaning of Monkman’s nativity scene.

The first year we lived in Hong Kong friends of ours back in Canada adopted a little girl from China. At the gift shop of the St. John’s Cathedral in the central area of the city I found a nativity scene in which all of the characters had Asian features and the décor of the stable was clearly influenced by Chinese architecture. I bought it for our friends thinking it would be a good way to introduce their new daughter to the hopeful story of the nativity.

St. Joseph’s Oratory Museum in Montreal set up a nativity scene that caused some controversy in 2018. Mary and Joseph crouch around their son’s manger. Mary is holding a Star Bucks coffee cup in one hand and giving the peace sign with the other. Her fingernails are polished bright red, and we can see her bra strap as her oversized sweater slips down her shoulder. Joseph is wearing a denim shirt and jeans and has a man bun. He is holding a cell phone and taking a selfie of the family. Called Hipster Nativity the scene includes a shepherd watching something on his I-pad and the Magi arriving on Segways carrying gifts in Amazon boxes. There are solar panels on the stable roof and the cows’ feed trough is labeled 100% organic.

When I visited the Ufizzi Art Gallery in Florence I saw Adoration of the Magi painted by Botticelli in 1475. All the characters in the nativity scene are wearing clothes in keeping with the European nobility’s Renaissance fashion preferences. The faces of many of the key characters in the nativity scene are actually modeled after members of the wealthy Medici family who paid Botticelli to create the painting as a way to immortalize themselves.

Over the centuries the Christmas story has been illustrated in ways that make it relevant to diverse people living through all kinds of experiences. If the story is going to have meaning for each new generation people need to be able to see themselves in it. Innovative artists in both the past and present help us to do just that.