Darkness reigns for the next fortnight, as the Museum of Old and New Art’s winter festival, Dark Mofo 2014, launches to celebrate the dark through large-scale public art, food, music, light, film and noise, over the next fortnight.
Last year, MONA’s inaugural winter festival attracted more than 128,000 people to events across 10 days in Hobart. This year the fire burns deeper; occupying historic and underutilised spaces around Hobart such as the Town Hall Underground, Prince of Wales Battery, Narryna Heritage Museum, the Old Mercury Building, and MONA’s new festival hub, The Odeon Theatre.
Dark Mofo 2014 features the only Australian shows of avant-garde performer Diamanda Galás, American doom pioneers Sunn O))) and Earth, David Lynch muse Chrysta Bell, the MONA-commissioned Tim Passes features Dean Stevenson and a 33-piece orchestra putting museum owner David Walsh’s late brother’s poems to music, and Dark Mofo Films running throughout – featuring new incendiary Australian films biting into our nation’s dark heart – with filmmakers present at most screenings.
Dark Mofo is at its heart a public art festival, so head toward the lights; go to the waterfront to engage with Articulated Intersect, the large-scale public artwork by Mexican-Canadian electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Washing River 2014 by Chinese contemporary artist Yin Xiuzhen’s 6,000 litre ice sculpture, and provide your feedback on Acconci Studio’s concept plans for the Future Hobart 2014 public space project.
Other wintry highlights include the three-night Bacchanalian banquet, the City of Hobart Dark Mofo Winter Feast, with its 60-ft Ferris Wheel of Death, the MONA till Midnight mystery event, plus after-hours debauchery at Dark Faux Mo and Grimoire, performances, installations, exhibitions, and much more, all building up to the winter solstice at 8.51pm on 21 June, with the annual Nude Solstice Swim the next morning to welcome back the light.
Dark Mofo runs 12 – 22 June 2014. For more information and complete program, visit: www.darkmofo.net.au for details.
Image: photo by Kristofer Buckle re-processing by Diamanda Galás and Chrome Digital (2013)