Troy Sugrue, a creative director with 25 years of experience in the commercial world of marketing, and 50 years of experience in the religious world of Methodism drew on both long-time associations, to come up with a special project for Takapuna Methodist Church to share Christmas with the community.

Mary, mother of Jesus, in Doc Martins, Tino Rangatiratanga flag, Korowai, and a menagerie of tattoos. When artist Kahu Gill began this painting it was intended to be a homage to the rich history of religious art and iconology devoted to the Virgin Mary, but over weeks of painting, Kahu saw more and more of herself reflected in the indigeneity, activism, mystical connection, and radical action of the Madonna. By completion, the painting was more self-portrait than homage. Mary had become a Māori activist, and Kahu had become the mother of Jesus. Somewhere in the creative journey, theology, and art had merged in a delicious collision, overflowing with symbolic meaning.

For as long as I can remember, Aucklanders have cherished December trips to Ponsonby’s Franklin Road, to view the amazing Christmas lights and decorations. It is a wonderful, boundary-busting, heart-enhancing, experience for the community.

Last November I was sitting in church and I started thinking about what we as a church could do differently this Christmas. Could Christmas somehow support our aspiration to become more connected with our neighbours and community? That’s when the idea popped into my head.

We could use the biblical Christmas story as a ‘hook’ to create a communal experience similar to the Franklin Road extravaganza. The story – and Mary and Joseph - has inspired incredible works of art for centuries. I was thinking that imagery could drive the whole experience …

What if we could project those stunning renaissance masterpieces onto the exterior of the church? It would give us a massive platform for our presentation and guarantee a massive audience. Thousands of people pass our church every day as they make their way in and out of Takapuna. GENIUS!

What’s so special about the biblical Christmas story? And how can it compete with Santa Claus dishing out toys?

Christians (including myself) often wring their hands in despair at the commercialisation of Christmas. However, rampant capitalism may have done us a huge favour. The global commercialisation of Christmas has ensured that nearly everyone knows what a nativity scene looks like. I’m pretty sure most people in my neighbourhood could name a few characters from the stable. The story is embedded in our collective subconscious; it has cultural currency. I wanted to leverage that currency to create engagement, dialogue, and a sense of celebration in our community.

The challenge was producing an experience that entertained and engaged the public, was theologically authentic and avoided upsetting any conservative members of our congregation. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I felt well-qualified to give it a crack.

I started by clearly identifying my objectives:

· To make us more approachable and un-weird us

· To share the Christmas story in a way that lets people from any faith or perspective see themselves in the characters of the story.

· To respect the sacred nature of the biblical story, holding it lightly and being prepared to laugh at the more uptight aspects of our tradition.

· To boldly demonstrate that faith-based organisations can be intellectually authentic, free of dogma, non-paternalistic, and not dicks

The Messaging

The theological and philosophical aspects of the story are vast. To create a cohesive and consumable presentation I focused in on just two aspects of the story - the political messages, and the mystical messages.

The political narrative was largely informed by a report from UK Theological think tank, THEOS, The Politics of Christmas.

“The story warns against the sins of Empire building and colonisation. Mary and Joseph are indigenous people living under the colonial rule of a mighty Empire. They experienced colonisation as poverty, exclusion, dislocation, and persecution.”

The mystical narrative was significantly informed by the work of theologian and activist Matthew Fox.

“The good news does not stop with us being divine children, we are also the ones who give birth to divine children - regularly. In our creativity, our work, our children, our citizenship, in all our relationships.”

The Art

Intuitively I believed that art would deliver the community engagement we were aiming for - art can inspire awe, and everything becomes possible when we are in a state of awe.

Psychologist and Berkeley academic Dacher Keltner pioneered the scientific study of awe 20 years ago. Keltner’s comprehensive global research revealed the most common and powerful stimulants of awe are nature, selfless human acts, music, and visual art.

It was encouraging to have this intuition confirmed by science, however, looking at the challenging political and mystical theme we wanted to explore, it became clear that classical art painted hundreds of years ago would not be enough. The Christmas story is a timeless narrative and accordingly, we decided to embrace art from across the continuum of time – past, present, and future.

ART OF THE PAST was easy. There is wonderful material to work with and I chose to focus on the golden age of religious art, the Renaissance - Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Botticelli.

For the ART OF TODAY, we worked with contemporary Auckland artist, Kahu Gill. Kahu is a tattoo artist, musician, composer, and stylist. She was a perfect voice to ground the project in contemporary culture. Kahu sees her art as nostalgic, psychedelic, genderqueer, and a little anxious. She also feels very connected to the spiritual realm and is drawn to the paranormal. By day Kahu cares for the dead, working as a mortician providing natural funerals.

Like many urban Māori Kahu doesn’t have close links to a marae or hapu, but she does feel a profound connection to te Ao Māori. When conceiving Māori Mary, Kahu was drawn to the fact Mary was an indigenous person who lived in her land, under the colonial control of a foreign power. That shared experience was the starting point for how the painting would unfold.

ART OF THE FUTURE presented a creative risk and opportunity that charged the whole project. I chose to embrace art generated by AI (artificial intelligence) to represent the unknown influences of future art. AI-generated art is a new and emerging technology. Using natural language to describe what you want to create, the AI machine references millions of language and visual cues to assess the request and create the art. The AI produced compelling images to support our themes. In the political space, it delivered a poignant interpretation of a young pregnant couple dislocated from their support networks and unable to find accommodation in Auckland’s housing crisis.

In the mystical space, the Christmas story should reawaken our sense of wonder and the divine child within each of us. The AI produced a series of images featuring the adoration of the shepherds as Mary presents numerous different symbolic objects representing aspects of the divine child within including puppies, and minions.

AI also delivered some imagery that was simply entertaining, like this classical painting of Mary reading a sacred book, contemporised by AI to Mary dealing with online bullying

Footnote

The project didn’t light up TMC for Christmas 2022. I started too late to find, commission, and curate all the art, and we could not find the significant funding required to rent the projection equipment needed to cover a church in images. However, the project is far from a failure. A vibrant seed has been planted, and the foundational collection of art created continues to grow. This project is a living and evolving visual resource that will be nurtured over time and shared for many Christmases.

I am looking for artists who may wish to contribute to the project. If you are interested in contributing art, or video editing skills, or Theological input, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me on troy@unoloco.co.nz

We also have a video that showcases much of the art, and the key messages we promoting. It is an evolving work in progress. You can view it https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/784186614