Nativity

This exhibition take you into the wonderfully complex realm of folk tradition to explore the single custom - familiar to Hungarians across the country - of the travelling nativity play, including its discovery by ethnographers and museum curators, the range of nativity sets and props involved, and the context in which the custom was practiced. Following a section that discusses how folk nativity sets are preserved and displayed, the exhibition present a handful of specific examples demonstrating both how the custom has changed over time, and how it lives on and is sustained today. Lastly, a number of examples originating in different times and places are used to underscore the many ways in which the nativity scene itself has served as an object of religious devotion both in Hungary and abroad.

Curators: Emese Szojka, Erika Koltay, Hannah Daisy Foster