At the Uffizi Galleries they have decided to set up a crib which is a hymn to contemporary art that saves the environment. The installation is inspired by the tradition of the nativity scene and will remain on display until January 29th. Museum director Eike Schmidt made this choice because “the conservation of the artistic heritage and that of the landscape and environmental heritage enhance each other”.
How do you create a new world free from pollution, environmental disasters, global warming? The Lebanese-Canadian artist Marya Kazoun explains it through an installation inspired by the crib: the protagonists are the almost tree-like silhouettes of the Magi, made of cotton wool – 2.60 meters high – and covered with a milky white fabric. They don’t bring gold, frankincense and myrrh as gifts but clean energy, represented by the wind turbines mounted on their tops. First Act, this is the name of the work, will transmit its environmentalist message throughout the Christmas holidays and until 29 January from the Sala Bianca, the most prestigious space in Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
The wind, which represents the transitory and the elusive, is in this work the vital breath of the universe and of those who inhabit it. In opposition to it, the menacing presence of a swarm of locusts, made of Murano glass, symbolizes the climatic ruin that is increasingly looming over the fate of the planet.
The artist thus associates the ancient biblical disaster with the current ecological one, to push the viewer to reflect and act. The birth of a new world – the spherical sculpture in the center – is admired by six figures arranged in pairs, representing the union between human beings. Following the Christian tradition, there are also the figures of the Madonna and Saint Joseph, the ox and the donkey, who attentively watch over the newborn. The metaphysical space of Marya Kazoun’s Nativity – where nightmares, symbols and utopia merge – is inhabited by creatures that open a window onto possible futures, from which the viewer can look out to investigate himself and the reality that surrounds him.
The director of the Galleries Eike Schmidt explains: «Protecting the artistic heritage and conserving the landscape and environmental heritage are serious and urgent duties that must never enter into conflict, but favor each other. In the installation First Act, Marya Kazoun starts from the crib tradition and makes us reflect on the most serious danger that our planet is running: that of losing the ecological balance, thus putting the survival of mankind at risk. The work highlights and exemplifies how natura naturans, inherent in every creative act, necessarily invokes the utmost respect and commitment».