Arts festival calls for entries

A festival exploring, encouraging and celebrating faithful creativity is offering up to $1000 for winning entries in each of its six competitions.

Shelley Poole won the Avondale College of Higher Education Fine Art Prize at Manifest this past year for her painting Formed Out Of The Earth/Birth.
Credit: Colin Chuang.

The Manifest Creative Arts Festival is coordinated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific through Adventist Media Network and Avondale College of Higher Education. The entities are offering $6000 in cash for original creative pieces in filmmaking, fine arts, instrumental music composition, song composition and writing.

“We value creatives and the way they challenge us to think about our faith,” says co-convenor Brenton Stacey, public relations officer at Avondale. “The prize money is a small but tangible demonstration of this.”

Manifest has increased the number of competitions from five to six for this, the third annual festival. New this year is a competition in instrumental music composition, sponsored by Avondale. This means Manifest is now calling for entries in the following:

Avondale College of Higher Education Fine Arts Competition—open to fine art works in all media and processes.
Avondale College of Higher Education Instrumental Music Composing Competition—original arrangement or composition; open to all instrumental music genres.
Hope Channel Filmmaking Competition—maximum 10 minutes in length; open to all genres.
Institute of Worship Song Composing Competition—original song; open to the praise and worship genre.
Psalter Music Song Composing Competition—original song; open to all genres except praise and worship.
Signs Publishing Company Writing Competition—maximum 1000 words; open to all genres.

Besides prizes for the best entry in each competition, Manifest is also offering an Avondale College of Higher Education Young Achiever Prize (for entrants aged 21 and under) and an ADRA Australia Just Art Prize (for entries exploring the intersection of faith, art and social justice). Both prizes are worth $500.

Avondale students Anna Beaden, Shelley Poole and Sara Thompson won prizes this past year, as did graduates Josh Bolst and Josh Hamilton.

Enter the competitions by Friday, March 8, 2013, at 12.00 PM, to be eligible.