What is an act of desecration? The work of the Detroit-based artist Tony Rave has uncovered controversial discussions about this question and the implications of reconfiguring religiously themed objects by combining them with images from popular and mass culture.

Rave’s collection includes a Series of white porcelain putti and other statues, busts and figures of the Virgin Mary – all in blackface. Some of these characters are standalone pieces, while others combine ephemeral images of the mother with pornography of women in glass cases. A few other works are assembled into larger crafts containing remnants of branded products: empty Hennessy bottles, Newport menthol cigarette packs, baking powder boxes, the Nike emblem, a painted face of Colonel Sanders, and logos such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

In its modern definition, profanation is not only the destruction or disregard of sacred objects, but the very concept of it deprive them of their holy character. However, the word “desecrate” comes from Latin profane, meaning “to sanctify,” with the prefix “de-” meaning “of” or “concerning,” as opposed to undo or the opposite of being. Rave’s work arguably does not desecrate the image of the Virgin, but rather sanctifies its symbolic nature, dismantling the long-term systematization of female holiness as pure white. With Mary in blackface, drooling crimson paint, we are reminded of the complicated story of how art represents holiness, and that the veneration of sacred idols and images – including the female body of Mary – is not unique to a European Christian belief system.

The use of sacred themes in and around art has always been a controversial issue and one with a long history in the pre-modern world. We are reminded of the violent efforts of the 8th and 9th century Byzantine iconoclasm and iconoclasm of the Reformation, which argued that the making and use of images for Christian worship was contrary to the word of the Bible and the second commandment. We also know that different sects of Christianity have different rules about the place of idols and religious paintings in churches, if any. Despite these debates, cults of saints were and are revered and worshiped to similar gods; and churches still contain paintings of saints, Bible stories, and statues of saints—whose early intent was to teach Scripture to an illiterate audience. Similar discussions about representation can also be found in theater history, where the depiction and characterization of God on stage has also been heavily debated.

In the 13th century Western Europe saw a significant change in the representation of women and their role in society. This period saw the rise of colloquialism (as opposed to Church Latin) and subsequently the production of romantic stories containing elements from the so-called “East”, influenced by Europeans’ cross-cultural contact with Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) communities, mainly as Outcome of Crusade advances from Western Europe. These factors changed the way devotional practices by and through women were portrayed in manuscript and visual culture. Above all – because Orientalist images of women reconciled the “East” with fetishized exoticism – Western European art ontologically recast the image of virginity within its own moral-ethical parameters, associating a white female body with piety and devotion Latin Christianity. The main character then became the image of a white Holy Mother of God, now objectified and trapped in a male-eyed desire.

Rave’s work reminds us that the metaphorical qualities associated with the female body transcended those imposed by Western European colonial practices; that throughout Europe and the world icons, shrines and statues of the Black Madonna or Black Virgin have long been erected and venerated as equal counterparts. That also conveys the work Piety is not purely white; that the allegorical imagery of Mary – also one of the most important female figures in Islam – functioned symbolically as a reminder of the important role of women in spiritual culture. The Lament of the Virgin, for example, and the shift in her metaphorical representations are consistent with historical changes in a world where goddesses were seen as equal to gods, where women played an active and significant role in ritual culture, particularly in the practice of lamentation Women negotiated the beliefs of their communities with the gods. Until it was usurped by a male monotheism.

When all this constitutes an act Desecration, Then maybe it’s time we re-examine how and what our society worships.

Responses from Hector Garcia, Chief Innovation Officer, Associate Partner; and Trevor Hubbard, Global Chief Executive Officer, Butcher Shop® Global.

Background: This site aims to create a consumer-centric global hiring experience for Nike and its family of brands. We transformed Nike’s employer brand, digital experience, technology, platforms and content to attract, recruit, hire and retain top talent worldwide. This extensive project involved many talented people and lasted more than a year. We were challenged to make job hunting as enjoyable as buying shoes by creating a database that matched candidate personalities to teams, groups and jobs – as seen in the Find Your Fit app. Targeting a diverse, global audience, we ensured each region was represented in the content and prioritized diversity and inclusion, which reflects Nike’s thoughtfulness and values.

Technology: The project was technically divided into four key elements. The first was the front end. Our goal was a fast, fluid experience where everything feels connected. To achieve this, we used React as our front-end framework Next.js for server-side rendering. We also added an extra layer of functionality to the frontend to easily integrate 3rd party features like chatbots and custom tracking tools.

The second element was a robust fully custom CMS. Our challenge was that Nike has many locations and it was important to showcase the specific benefits, lifestyles and microcultures of each location and add specific job opportunities to each location. We needed an extensive localization layer as people are accessing the site from all over the world. We have chosen django as the basis for the CMS and created all the necessary customizations, including a custom user interface and metrics dashboards to track aggregated data.

The third aspect was the job postings themselves. Like any large company, Nike needs multiple options for talent tracking systems. Each global Nike office supported more than four talent platforms like Taleo or Avature, and local offices could add more. Because of this fragmented ecosystem, we needed to create a jobs API that would connect to each talent provider and unify the response for our CMS and frontend. The Jobs API or internal talent system had its infrastructure, database and CDN; was completely independent; and focused solely on syncing and unifying job listings.

The fourth and final part was the infrastructure and scaling strategies we employed. We created a Kubernetes cluster to define rules and metrics to monitor traffic and server loads and increase or decrease the number of instances for each service. In addition, we have ensured optimal performance worldwide by dividing our infrastructure into three main regions, each operating according to different strategies.

The X factor was that we also developed all of this for other standalone Nike brands like Converse.

Challenges: Building a rich experience of features and tools for HR managers and recruiters at Nike presented two major challenges.

First, data management was a hurdle as numerous teams, job data, geospatial data, benefits, profiles, and applicant tracking systems were collated and stored in different locations, hampering innovation. Our first step was to centralize and structure the data to allow for layering and tagging, e.g. B. Personal information and behavioral information for optimizing the job search. Our data teams and experienced strategists built a core data engine to manage thousands of jobs, making it easy to create new teams, jobs and content.

Second, content was critical to building a platform that would improve the recruitment and hiring of top talent. Acquiring Nike’s acclaimed content was a challenge as much of it was in the hands of vendors around the world and focused on marketing products rather than showcasing work experience. Our “Look Closer” idea aimed to make Nike’s work culture visible worldwide. We likened the process to furnishing a beautiful home to make it welcoming and comfortable for guests and family. We secured the budget and support to create numerous videos and thousands of images, sending three teams to sixteen countries over six weeks, resulting in a content suite mapped to the site’s architecture. That hard work has paid off and improved the overall experience.

favorite details: One of the most impressive features of the Nike Career website is the job cart feature that allows users to add jobs that they want to apply for. The Find Your Fit search tool helps users find suitable teams or jobs based on their skills, experience and personality. The site provides a glimpse of work at Nike locations around the world, from Japan to the headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Additionally, the team’s movement language subtly reflects Nike’s brand movement. These elements combine to create a powerful, delightful experience befitting Nike’s career site. Finally, the speed of the site and the technology that powers its functions are top notch. You can really feel it when you surf the site.

New Lessons: We used our Beat Failure® methodology to extract these insights. Like most agencies, we started with the cliche question: what does success look like? After collecting the responses, we held a Beat Failure resolution meeting with our client and our team to find out what was causing this project and the careers site experience to fail. There were numerous unforeseen failure points that would have hindered its success. We found it was impossible to get content from Nike, the job matrix and data sources were siled and we had to engage with different stakeholders and decision makers. Overcoming these challenges proved crucial as the project impacted every aspect of the global company.

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