Sanctuary/Santuario Call for Art Extended to Aug. 30

In recognition of Latine/Hispanic Heritage Month, Sanctuary/Santuario will feature the art of Latine/x artists based out of Northwest Arkansas in a juried exhibition on display in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center. Organized by the Multicultural Center and the School of Art, Sanctuary/Santuario will feature work that conveys and complicates notions of sanctuary and that represents contemporary perspectives of Latine/x creatives in Northwest Arkansas. 

The deadline to enter has been extended to Aug. 30.

Submission Criteria

• Please submit artwork by Friday, Aug. 30, using this Google Form.
• Artists may submit up to five different works for consideration.
• All forms of visual media are welcome, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, digital, printmaking, fiber, photography, mixed media, crafts, fashion and illustration. Audiovisual works such as musical recordings and video will also be considered.

More about Sanctuary/Santuario

Since the 1990s, multiple generations of the Latin American diaspora have set down roots in Arkansas that extend deeper and deeper—though our conception of home remains a complicated matter. In recognition of Latine/Hispanic Heritage Month, Sanctuary/Santuario invites us to ask: What circumstances and possibilities must be present for a place to transform into a home and for a region to blossom into a community? What circumstances and possibilities must be present for our homes and communities to transform into sites of sanctuary?

There are myriad entry points to the artistic world Sanctuary/Santuario aspires to bring into being. Artists may contemplate the etymology of the word "sanctuary," which comes from the Latin, sanctuarium, meaning "a place for keeping sacred things, a shrine." Artists might draw inspiration from the political sanctuary movements of the 1980s and the present day, which developed grassroots networks of shelter and aid to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. Artists may capture the physical, emotional and spiritual states of inhabiting a sanctuary and consider the factors that facilitate or prevent physical, emotional and spiritual sites of sanctuary. 

Possible throughlines: The search for and the denial of the American dream, the sense of sanctuary found in our relationships with loved ones. political sanctuary movements protecting undocumented immigrants, the right to stay home, holiness, spirituality, healing, generating a sense of sanctuary by reconnecting with ancestors, generating a sense of sanctuary by connecting with chosen family and generating a sense of sanctuary by loving people across nation-state borders.

Please reach out to Sophia Ordaz (saordaz@uark.edu), Audrey Vega (amvega@uark.edu) and Elsie Mejia (ejmejia@uark.edu) should you have any questions.