Tasmania’s festival Dark Mofo gets underway today, with thousands set to attend drawcard events like the Winter Feast, Night Mass and international musical acts.
There are lots of free art experiences in some unusual venues across Hobart — from a live car crash on Hobart’s Regatta Grounds to a 5-metre goblin in a disused 1870s church, and a thought-provoking exhibition by a Tasmanian Aboriginal artist in the basement of an old furniture shop.
Hidden across the city, art lovers can also find a naked man covered in sand, a baptism in a Freemasons lodge and a collective scream in a “sprawling wasteland”.
This is Chris Twite’s first year as Dark Mofo creative director. (ABC Arts: Anna Kucera)
Dark Mofo creative director Chris Twite describes this year’s festival as a “behemoth”, set to light up the city in its signature red colour theme.
“It carries across all of the city, with everyone lighting up their businesses and houses red,” he told ABC Radio Hobart.
It is Mr Twite’s first festival in the key creative role, and his measure of success will be people emerging from the warmth of their homes into the cold and darkness to experience the festival.
“Success for me is that we see people on the streets getting involved, wandering around and talking to strangers and neighbours and exploring interesting, weird … and glorious things,” he said.
Iconic red crosses will be seen on Hobart’s waterfront throughout the festival. (Supplied: Jordan Cowen)
‘Incredible art and fire’ at Dark Park
The family-friendly Dark Park is back, taking over Macquarie Point near Hobart’s port.
“It’s a sprawling wasteland filled with incredible art and fire,” Mr Twite said.
It could be the last time Dark Park will be held at Macquarie Point, as a stadium project is slated for the site.
“We wanted to have this one last chance to really go back to what has been a heartland of Dark Mofo,”
Mr Twite said.
“It’ll be a different feel but it’ll still be large and expansive with a couple of giant artworks for people to check out.”
The area includes Dark Bar, which offers music nightly with “warm tipples, nibbles, purging fears and trips to the afterlife”.
Australian artist Simon Zoric has brought his series Coffin Rides to Dark Mofo. (Supplied)
The trip to the afterlife is a nod to Simon Zordic’s Coffin Rides, where festival-goers can get inside a coffin and receive a souvenir photo of the experience.
There’s also the opportunity to view this year’s Ogoh-Ogoh statue, a giant Maugean skate, and write down a fear to put inside it before it is burned at the end of the festival.
Ronnie van Hout’s Quasi will watch Dark Mofo’s crowds from atop a waterfront building. (Supplied)
The sculpture Quasi, a grumpy-faced hand, will look over Dark Park from the roof of the Henry Jones Art Hotel.
It wouldn’t be Dark Mofo without a warehouse full of lights, and that’s what the installation Sora will offer, with “kinetic light beams”.
A 12m-wide installation, Neon Anthem, asks visitors to take a knee and scream, and Channelling by Hannah Foley is a sound experience using tones from deep under the Gordon Dam.
Brazilian artist Paula Garcia and a stunt driver will edge towards a head-on collision in Crash Body. (Supplied)
Live car crash ‘tense and very strange’
Brazilian artist Paula Garcia’s performance work Crash Body: Aftermath will be live on Saturday June 7 at the Hobart Regatta Grounds.
“It’ll be tense and very strange,” Mr Twite said.
“It’s a choreographed, tension-filled two hours involving two drivers and two cars, racing around with a series of near misses until they finally crash into each other,” he said.
It is the first time the artist has presented a work of this scale in Australia.
The performance will be replayed at Dark Park on Sunday June 8, and from June 12–15.
Travis Ficarra’s new sculpture Chocolate Goblin can be found in a decommissioned church. (Supplied)
‘Basilica’ to visit a goblin
Inside an 1870s disused sandstone church on the corner of Brisbane Street and Elizabeth Street is Basilica, a free venue offering a “sanctuary of art” with fire and drinks.
Chocolate Goblin by Melbourne artist Travis Ficarra warns of nudity and adult themes, where a “naked, pregnant form lingers on the edge of desire and disgust”.
Also exhibited is Mortal Voice, a single video of “extreme metal voicing and gesture, stretched to extend the artist’s guttural voice into uncanny realms of spectral distortion”.
Nathan Maynard will exhibit works in the basement of an old furniture shop on Collins Street. (Supplied: Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford)
Maynard art in Coogan’s basement
Trawlwoolway artist and playwright Nathan Maynard does not shy away from difficult themes in his work We Threw Them Down The Rocks Where They Had Thrown The Sheep.
Housed in the basement of the old Coogan’s building at 79 Collins Street, Maynard’s artwork highlights museums’ history of stealing and displaying the remains of First Nations ancestors.
It is open every night and you can check the times here.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 will inform discussions at an exhibition at the State Library and Archive. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Banned books and Orwell
Inside the State Library and Archive of Tasmania is Revolution & Silence, which includes an installation by Brigita Ozolins, a Tasmanian artist with a background in librarianship.
The exhibition is described as a collision of books, history, art and conversation.
Ozolin’s installation in the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts considers George Orwell’s novel 1984 and free speech, while looking at current politics, fake news, artificial intelligence and social media.
A collection of challenged, banned or restricted books will also be on display, and available to read in a Silenced Reading library.
Everything Is Recorded can be heard 7 kilometres in every direction across Hobart. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Everything Is Recorded to boom across city
Festival-goers won’t have to be anywhere in particular to experience Everything Is Recorded, a project by British record producer Richard Russell.
It will come to them via a sound system usually reserved for emergencies and mass evacuations.
The 30-minute, improvised meditation on the winter solstice can be heard up to 7 kilometres away in every direction and will be projected all over Hobart at 8pm on Friday June 6 and at 6pm on Saturday June 14.
The winter feast will have free entry on Sunday June 15. (ABC News)
A car park, boulders and City Hall nudity
Inside City Hall on Saturday June 14 at 7:30pm, Cuban-born artist Carlos Martiel will perform a one-off work called Custody, enduring “two hours of rising sand and crushing weight over his naked and restrained body”, as a statement on black deaths in custody.
Martiel will also exhibit work relating to racial violence in the basement of an old bank at 84 Bathurst Street.
Hobart Central Carpark will host 1,000 Strikes, which warns of loud noise and low light and will contain orchestral gongs and improvised music and movement.
The Rosny Barn plays host to Nexus: Totality, featuring the silhouette of a Kunanyi boulder, and the Plimsoll Gallery will have Gordon Hookey’s major new exhibition, A Murriality.
The Freemason’s Grand Lodge of Tasmania on the corner of Davey Street and Sandy Bay Road will house a “relentless baptism” by performance artist Ida Sophia.
Three thousand people participated in the solstice swim last year. (ABC News: Maren Preuss)
Nude Swim sold out
Getting the kit off and plunging into freezing water is so popular that the free Nude Solstice Swim on Saturday June 21 is at capacity, but the festival says to check the website in case more tickets become available.
There are also more free events on out at Mona, the Hanging Garden and Good Grief Studios.
The festival will come to an end with the burning of the Ogoh-Ogoh on Sunday June 15 and entry to the Winter Feast is free.
This sign at Hobart Airport is part of Dark Mofo 2025. (Supplied: Jesse Hunniford)
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