Call for Papers: Sacred Christian Art in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

The editors of Sacrum et Decorum, a peer-reviewed international journal dedicated to the history and study of sacred art, invite submissions for a special focus on sacred Christian art in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. They welcome contributions that engage with the intersection of Christian (broadly interpreted) visual culture and the distinctive colonial, postcolonial, and multicultural contexts of the region.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Church architecture and interior decoration
  • First Nations and Māori visual traditions’ encounters with European missionary art
  • The reception and adaptation of European sacred art traditions in Australia and New Zealand
  • Religious street art
  • Individual artists, craftspeople, and workshops engaged in sacred art production
  • Stained glass, iconography, sculpture, metalwork, and devotional objects
  • Contemporary sacred art and evolving liturgical aesthetics

Sacrum et Decorum is published in both Polish and English and is indexed in DOAJ, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, and other major academic databases. It is an open-access publication, and authors retain full copyright under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence.

The journal welcomes original, previously unpublished scholarly articles making a substantive contribution to the field. In addition to full research articles, shorter contributions – including reviews, source materials, and artists’ reflections on their own practice – are also invited. Submissions in English are particularly encouraged.

Full author guidelines, technical requirements, and submission information are available at the journal’s website.

‘Behold the Man!’ – A Poetry Contest

Mary Twomey, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man. Silk aquatint, monotype, collagraph, drawing, 25.4 x 53.34 cm. Private collection.

If you’re a poet who has ever found yourself drawn to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth – whether in faith, doubt, curiosity, or outright resistance – Wayfare magazine has a contest with your name on it.

The inaugural ‘Behold the Man!’ poetry contest is open now, with submissions accepted until 29 March 2026 (Palm Sunday, fittingly). The prize pool is generous, with honorable mentions also published in Wayfare.

What makes this contest particularly interesting is the scope of the invitation itself. Wayfare is explicitly seeking poems from any faith tradition – or none. The subject is Jesus of Nazareth, but the angle of approach is entirely yours. Skeptic, believer, agnostic, curious outsider – all are welcome, provided the poem engages its subject with freshness and genuine thought rather than settling for easy praise or easy dismissal.

The reference poems cited in the contest announcement give a sense of the range they’re after: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s rapturous devotion, Mary Oliver’s tender human sympathy, James Wright’s moral ambiguity, Anne Sexton’s anguished wrestling. These are poems that take a stance, feel something, and refuse to look away. That’s the company this contest wants to keep.

A few practical notes: you may submit up to two poems, each no longer than 50 lines (or 300 words for prose poems). Judging is blind. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Poems must be unpublished and entirely human-written.

Full guidelines and the submission form are available here.

Making art in a time of crisis

Rod Pattenden, Jason Goroncy, and Maissa Alameddine were recently interviewed by Meredith Lake for the ABC’s Soul Search program. We talked about art, theology, and other stuff, and about how art really matters in sustaining and developing what is most eloquent and wonderful about being human.

You can listen to the interview here.

The 2022 Mandorla Art Award

Details about and entry information for the 2022 Mandorla Art Award, which will engage the theme of Metamorphosis, are now available.