A beautiful young woman
drapes her long auburn hair over a human skull, pressing it close to her face
like a lover. Another, clad in black and holding a wooden staff, poses like a
model in a photo shoot on location in an incongruous forest. Long, elaborately
decorated fake fingernails like talons grasp shiny crystals, evoking the “just
so” beauty of a staged magazine spread. In the world of the Witches of
Instagram, the art of photography meets business witchery and feminist
activism.
Is it (still) the season of
the witch? Luxury fashion house, Dior, has a tarot-themed collection;
witchcraft featured in recent issues of Vogue
magazine; young witch-identifying women perform “fashion magic”; and an
alchemist-fashion designer has invented colour-changing hair dye, inspired by a
scene in the 1996 movie, The Craft.
An angry yet luxurious sex-positive feminism is in the air; goddesses, witches
and sluts are rising up again, a decade and a half after Rockbitch stopped
touring and almost thirty years after Annie Sprinkle’s first workshops
celebrating the sacred whore.
Exhibitions showcasing the
work of living and dead occult artists have been on the increase for several
years now, most recently Black Light:
Secret Traditions in Art Since the 1950s at the Centre de Cultura
Contemporània de Barcelona, and Barry William Hale + NOKO’s Enochian
performance at Dark Mofo in Tasmania. Multidisciplinary artist Bill Crisafi and
dancer Alkistis Dimech exemplify the Sabbatic witchcraft aesthetic; Russ
Marshalek and Vanessa Irena mix fitness and music with witchcraft in the age of
the apocalypse; DJ Juliana Huxtable and queer arts collective House of Ladosha
are a coven; rappers Azealia Banks and Princess Nokia are out and proud brujas;
and singer Lana del Rey admits hexing Donald Trump.
The
Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies invites
submissions of articles (5000–8000 words) for a special issue on Pagan Art and
Fashion, edited by Caroline Tully (caroline.tully@unimelb.edu.au). How are
Paganism, modern Goddess worship, witchcraft and magick utilised in the service
of creative self-expression today? Potential topics might fall under the
general headings of, but are not limited to, Aesthetics, Dance, Fashion, Film
and Television, Internet Culture, Literature, Music, and Visual Art.
Submissions due June 15,
2019.
Click for the for information on the
submission process.
Please note that The Pomegranate: The International Journal
of Pagan Studies uses the University of Chicago Press
notes-and-bibliography citation style.
