A miniature theater that reflects the daily life of the inhabitants of Barcelona. This will be the nativity scene that Barcelona City Council has begun to install in Plaza Sant Jaume, a work in which scenographer Ignasi Cristià reinterprets the Neapolitan Nativity tradition in a Barcelona key.
The installation can be visited from this Friday, December 1, until next January 6, the Three Wise Men’s holiday. It is a half-circumference structure, with a width of just over 15 meters, a depth of about 10 and a half meters and a height of 7.5 meters. On the back there is a tour of the history of the manger tradition, which this year commemorates its 800th anniversary in Barcelona.
Cristià’s piece remains halfway between the traditional nativity scenes, banished many years ago from the Plaza Sant Jaume, and the controversial stagings that have been taking place with varying success in the main square of Barcelona. It is a large altarpiece with 70 characters that, according to the author, represent the diversity of the city with an inclusive approach in which it is expected that each Barcelonan feels represented in one of the characters.
In 18th century Naples, the most powerful families in the city competed with each other by exhibiting sets commissioned from the best sculptors, goldsmiths, carvers, cabinetmakers and tailors. They were the reflection of that regularly chaotic order that characterizes Neapolitan society and daily life. In this type of altarpieces, everything from commedia de l’arte to opera buffa or popular dances such as the tarantella were represented.
Following the Neapolitan tradition, the manger in Plaça Sant Jaume represents the people with their own physiognomies. In this case, Barcelona becomes the backdrop for the different scenes of the Christmas tradition, but with the dynamics of a 21st century Mediterranean metropolis.
The figures in the nativity scene are photographic prints on weather-resistant die-cut resin and large-format canvas on a structural support of wood and iron scaffolding in an overall half-moon arrangement. The photographs belong to an international image bank with a creative commons license for artistic uses, treated with a technique that gives them the pictorial appearance of some urban graffiti that can be seen on the streets of the city.
The Sant Jaume manger has a metropolitan vocation, with a backdrop of images of Barcelona. The West, Montjuïc mountain, is the space of the Annunciation; The city center, the streets of Eixample and Tibidabo in the background, are the scene of the Birth; and Sant Adrià de Besòs is the East, the space corresponding to the Three Wise Men.
Among the 70 figures, the manual workers on the land; the angels in charge of work at height; a young couple with a newborn child; fruit vendors; musicians; children reading a book; stroller and even an attempt at caganera: a young woman reading a book sitting on the sink…
The author points out that the project can be reminiscent of a stage box with a wallpaper decoration, and also a postcard that opens and displays a three-dimensional landscape based on flat figures.
The nativity scene will be inaugurated on Friday, December 1 and can be visited until January 6, 24 hours a day, and the lighting of the installation made up entirely of LED lights will be on until 11:30 p.m.
