Part of the magic of the McGivney Center’s annual crèche shows is their power to render the familiar exotic and the nostalgic expansive. In this year’s main exhibition, The Spirit of Christmas, Nativity scenes and other objects showcase dozens of cultures, geographies, aesthetics and materialities, each piece like a different meal from a shared buffet.
That metaphor is especially apt this year, as Spirit tracks the progress of the whole Christmas season, from Advent Sunday to Candlemas with many feast days between. The show actually starts with a giant version of an Advent calendar, a modern tradition involving an array of (usually) tiny doored compartments containing physical or spiritual treats to be enjoyed one day at a time over the course of Advent (lasting from the fourth Sunday before Christmas through Christmas Eve). Visitors can open six of the compartments in Spirit’s version, revealing images and objects including at least two normal-sized Advent calendars, which in turn feature the kind of compelling seasonal imagery that drives the rest of the exhibition.
Would an Advent calendar containing other, tinier Advent calendars—instead of candies, or whiskies, or coffees, or wisdom—attract those who use them in the real world? Probably not. But as a larger-than-life installation in a show of art and culture, it’s an attraction indeed.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
