tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/dark-mofo-17557/articlesDark Mofo – The Conversation2022-08-22T20:01:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1865582022-08-22T20:01:25Z2022-08-22T20:01:25Z‘You get burnt together, you get wet together, you dance together’: how festivals transform lives – and landscapes<p>Every year in lutruwita/Tasmania, <a href="https://www.triplem.com.au/story/dark-mofo-2022-figures-show-festival-was-a-success-202082">tens of thousands of people</a> journey to and meander through the island state and take in festivals such as <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">Dark Mofo</a>, <a href="https://cygnetfolkfestival.org/">Cygnet Folk Festival</a> or <a href="https://www.nayriniaragoodspirit.com/">Nayri Niara Good Spirit Festival</a>. </p>
<p>Part of the pull of this place and its cultural offerings are the landscapes in which such events are placed: picturesque mountain ranges and deep valleys; vast open paddocks and pristine bushlands; glistening coastlines; quirky city spaces.</p>
<p>As human geographers, we understand that festival landscapes are more than a party backdrop. They are not waiting, ready to greet us like some sort of environmental festival host. They have <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-deep-time-1440836">Deep Time</a> and layers of meaning.</p>
<p>But when they become spaces for creative adventures, these landscapes also have profound effects on how people experience festivals, affecting our sense of place, of ourselves and others. </p>
<p>Festivals come with specific boundaries – dates, gates or fences – and mark a period and place in which we experience <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02614360802127243">some shifting of social norms</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755458622000354#!">our research</a>, we wanted to explore how festivals affect people’s sense of place, self and other.</p>
<p>As Grace, an avid festival-goer, told us “social expectations that come with adulthood get removed at a festival.” </p>
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<p>I don’t know what happens when you walk through the gate of a festival [..] you leave all that behind and you step into what feels like […] a more authentic version of yourself. Or at least a freer one.</p>
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<h2>Creating spaces</h2>
<p>A lot happens to make a festival landscape. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tents" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475049/original/file-20220720-18-55x92j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A lot goes into forming a temporary community around a festival site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanya Pro/Unsplash</span></span>
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<p>Teams of staff and volunteers establish campsites, install rows of toilets that often are also composting works of art, build stages, lay kilometres of pipes and power chords and design paths, sculptures and dance floors. </p>
<p>These collective labours create a special atmosphere; serve basic needs for sleep, food, hydration, warmth and sanitation; invite journeying to and from; and foster relationships to places and sites via immersive experiences and hands-on engagements with the landscape itself, for itself.</p>
<p>Travis, a stage-builder and DJ, told us:</p>
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<p>if you use what’s already there, then [the stage] blends in with that whole environment and ties in to how people see it and how people feel in it.</p>
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<p>Marion, a festival artist, spoke of her desire to show care and respect by creating work that “doesn’t impose and can […] naturally be reabsorbed” into the landscape. </p>
<p>She described how all of the rocks for a labyrinth at one event came from the festival site. Once, the sheep who lived there walked through on their usual path – destroying her installation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-environmental-cost-of-abandoning-your-tent-at-a-music-festival-120198">The environmental cost of abandoning your tent at a music festival</a>
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<h2>Transformative experiences</h2>
<p>When people attend festivals, they often attach themselves to the landscape and detach from their daily lives: they are looking for transformative experiences. </p>
<p>In lutruwita/Tasmania, festivals such as <a href="https://www.fractangular.com.au/">Fractangular</a> near Buckland and <a href="https://m.facebook.com/panamafestival">PANAMA</a> in the Lone Star Valley take place in more remote parts of the state. </p>
<p>Grace, from Hobart, told us that being in those landscapes taps into</p>
<blockquote>
<p>something that humans have done forever […] gather around sound and nature and just experience that and feel freedom.</p>
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<p>Even when festivals are based in urban landscapes, the transformation of these spaces can evoke a sense of freedom. </p>
<p>For Ana, a festival organiser, creating thematic costumes is part of her own transformation. </p>
<p>At festivals she feels freedom to “wear ‘more out there’ things”.</p>
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<p>If I was on the street just on a Wednesday I’d have to [explain my outfit] […] Whereas at a [street] festival[it] flies under the radar. </p>
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<h2>Body memories</h2>
<p>Festival landscapes have features conducive for meeting in place (think open spaces, play spaces, food and drink venues) and for separating out (think fences and signs). </p>
<p>Commingling at festivals can literally lead people to bump into each other, reaffirm old bonds and create new connections through shared experiences. </p>
<p>One artist, Marion, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you go and you camp, you get burnt together, you get wet together, you dance together. [It creates] an embrace for me.</p>
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<p>Festivals often linger in people’s memories, entwined with <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-008-9222-0">bodily experiences</a>. People we spoke with talked about hearing birdsong and music, seeing the sun rise and fall over the hills and feeling grass under their dancing feet.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The galaxy at night." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475051/original/file-20220720-17-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Some festivals are held in remote parts of Tasmania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ken Cheung/Unsplash</span></span>
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<p>While <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038514565835">one-off events</a> can be meaningful, revisiting festivals may have an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1440783318773531">especially powerful effect</a>. </p>
<p>Annual festival pilgrimages become cycles of anticipation, immersion and memory-making. This continuing relationship with a landscape also allows festival goers to observe how the environment is changing.</p>
<p>As festival organiser Lisa said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>since 2013 […] every summer our site just got drier and drier. 2020 was the driest year of all. There was no creek. There was just a stagnant puddle.</p>
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<h2>Writing new stories</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic led organisers and attendees to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/how-music-festivals-are-surviving-coronavirus-cancellations/a-54374343">rethink engagements with live events</a>. Many were cancelled; some were trialled online. </p>
<p>But after seasons of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-17/music-festivals-in-tasmania-after-coronavirus/12462076">cancellations</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/without-visiting-headliners-can-local-artists-save-our-festivals-154830">downscaling</a> and <a href="https://untv.theunconformity.com.au/">online events</a>, some festivals in lutruwita/Tasmania are back, attracting thousands of domestic and interstate visitors. </p>
<p>For those festivals that have disappeared, their traces remain in our countless individual and collective stories of the magic of festival landscapes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/without-visiting-headliners-can-local-artists-save-our-festivals-154830">Without visiting headliners, can local artists save our festivals?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Every year, tens of thousands travel to art events throughout Tasmania. These unique festival landscapes change the way we experience the world – and ourselves.Amelie Katczynski, Research Assistant, Deakin UniversityElaine Stratford, Professor, School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of TasmaniaPauline Marsh, Social Researcher, Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617372021-05-28T04:16:59Z2021-05-28T04:16:59ZRising on pause; Dark Mofo ticket sales delayed. The government must insure our arts events<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403262/original/file-20210528-15-clw3nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1495%2C994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Wilds at Rising Festival will be closed during Melbourne's seven day lockdown.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Hyland/Rising</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When lockdown was announced in Melbourne on Thursday, it came on the same morning as the opening of Rising, a large new cultural festival designed to “re-synchronise” and “re-energise” the city that spent much of 2020 in hibernation. </p>
<p>The festival has announced a “pause” on shows for the coming week.</p>
<p>The arts are again confronted with the total loss of ticket revenue, just as the sector was tentatively recovering. It is another terrible setback for a bruised industry.</p>
<p>Lockdowns and border closures in 2021 have already forced shows to cancel at the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/theatre/festival-shows-cancelled-in-wake-of-covid-clusters-20201231-p56r0t.html">Sydney</a>, <a href="https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/news/latest-news/set-piece-cancellation/">Adelaide</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/feb/01/wa-lockdown-perth-festival-cancels-opening-night-as-fringe-world-put-on-hold">Perth</a> festivals, while Byron Bay Bluesfest was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-31/byron-bay-bluesfest-2021-cancelled-after-covid-case-found/100041870">cancelled at the last minute</a>. Reacting to the developing situation in Melbourne, Tasmania’s Dark Mofo — scheduled for June — has <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/dark-mofo-ticket-sales-delayed-amid-worsening-covid-situation-in-victoria/news-story/16b4eaa4016beb0b371f64ee41ad7c4a">delayed ticket sales</a>.</p>
<p>We need to do better in putting a floor under losses for the live-performance industry. </p>
<p>A publicly funded insurance scheme to compensate companies and their performers for COVID-19 related losses would give the sector planning confidence, and accelerate the return of cultural life to Australia’s cities. </p>
<h2>Shutdowns without support</h2>
<p>Some performance companies weathered the storm of 2020 well. </p>
<p>Last week, Victorian Opera reported a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/opera/opera-revives-dream-of-new-hq-after-2-5m-pandemic-windfall-20210519-p57taq.html">$2.5 million profit</a> for 2020, and Sydney and Melbourne’s symphony orchestras have also reported <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/orchestra-posts-big-profit-after-musicians-took-pandemic-pay-cuts-20210518-p57svj.html">healthy profits</a> in large part due to the companies being eligible for various government schemes, and saving on production-related expenditure.</p>
<p>But 2021 will be a very different proposition.</p>
<p>During previous lockdowns, some artists and arts workers were eligible for JobKeeper. This support is no longer available.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-says-artists-should-be-able-to-access-jobkeeper-payments-its-not-that-simple-138530">The government says artists should be able to access JobKeeper payments. It's not that simple</a>
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<p>Festivals, like Rising and Bluesfest, have been hit <a href="https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/au/news/breaking-news/bluesfest-boss-joins-calls-for-business-interruption-insurance-for-live-events-243978.aspx">particularly hard</a>. Festival seasons are compressed into as little as a few days or weeks, and when lockdowns occur at the eleventh hour, most costs are already committed.</p>
<p>While arts events are required to hold public liability insurance, many <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-21/festival-insurance-major-issue-holding-events-back/12785206">cannot afford insurance</a> to cover losses from forced public-emergency closures — or insurance companies are now excluding closures due to pandemics and communicable diseases altogether.</p>
<h2>Insuring the film industry</h2>
<p>In 2020, the government introduced the Temporary Interruption Fund to insure the film industry against pauses to production caused by COVID-19. Last month, this scheme was extended until <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/funding-and-support/covid-19-support/temporary-interruption-fund">the end of 2021</a>.</p>
<p>This scheme pays out on the basis of production budgets, with a cap of <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/funding-and-support/covid-19-support/temporary-interruption-fund">60% of the total budget</a>. Run on a rolling basis, with the insurance transferring between projects as they enter and conclude production, by April 2021 the scheme had <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/sites/default/files/attachments/Media%20release%20--%20Paul%20Fletcher%20--%20Supporting%20Australian%20screen%20production.pdf">reportedly</a> enabled more than 12,000 production roles.</p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/media-releases/2021/5/28/morrisons-failure-leaves-arts-and-events-businesses-exposed">Labor</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahinthesen8/status/1397762716631142401">the Greens</a> have now joined <a href="https://liveperformance.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/LPA-MR-LPA-calls-for-emergency-Business-Interruption-Fund-after-government-directive-shuts-down-Bluesfest-1April-2021FINAL.pdf">industry calls</a> for the government to establish an insurance scheme covering live performance and entertainment in the case of COVID-19 related losses.</p>
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<p>Such an arrangement would be particularly useful for events like festivals, when costs have mostly been paid before the curtain goes up and there can be particular difficulties in re-scheduling to a later date.</p>
<p>Catastrophic human and financial losses from bushfires, coastal erosion, flooding and other forms of climate risk have become <a href="https://theconversation.com/seriously-ugly-heres-how-australia-will-look-if-the-world-heats-by-3-c-this-century-157875">increasingly common</a>, and highlight the limitations of commercial insurance markets. Before COVID, Australia’s summer festivals were <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/whats-the-future-of-summer-music-festivals-in-the-new-era-of-me/11809652">already struggling</a> to pay bushfire-related insurance premiums.</p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://insurancecouncil.com.au/media-releases/ica-welcomes-federal-budget-disaster-mitigation-funding/">growing expectation</a> that government will play a role when the commercial insurance market fails to provide the cover people need in the face of natural and health disasters. </p>
<h2>What’s at stake</h2>
<p>One reason some arts organisations achieved healthy profits in 2020 was because their forced hibernation dramatically reduced expenditure.</p>
<p>The risk we face in not providing a publicly funded insurance scheme is arts festivals could now choose to hibernate until we have better vaccination coverage, and an associated commitment to end lockdowns and state border closures. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-litany-of-losses-a-new-project-maps-our-abandoned-arts-events-of-2020-148716">A litany of losses: a new project maps our abandoned arts events of 2020</a>
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<p>Unfortunately artists and arts workers cannot hibernate in the same way as 2020: they need income now. </p>
<p>A publicly-funded insurance scheme to underwrite companies and their performers for COVID-19 related losses would provide more income stability for artists and arts workers. </p>
<p>It would give the producers of festivals and other cultural events the confidence to take on the risk of producing during the pandemic. And it would help to ensure these festivals and events survive for future generations of creators and audiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Melbourne’s snap-lockdown proves festivals are still vulnerable. If the government doesn’t provide insurance, arts organisations may decide it’s not worth the risk.Brian Long, Teacher in Arts and Cultural Management, The University of MelbourneGuy Morrow, Senior Lecturer in Arts & Cultural Management, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1576772021-03-24T03:29:40Z2021-03-24T03:29:40ZDark Mofo doesn’t deserve our blood. Australia must invest in First Nations curators and artists<p>“We want your blood,” declared Dark Mofo on Saturday. This was not a metaphorical call. This was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-20/british-flag-indigenous-blood-santiago-sierra-dark-mofo/100018494#:%7E:text=Tasmanian%20Aboriginal%20Centre's%20Nala%20Mansell,Union%20Jack%2C%22%20she%20said">a literal request of First Nations Peoples</a> by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra.</p>
<p>The call-out was confronting — and probably set out what it intended to do: shock — but the white curators may not have counted on the level of Indigenous disgust, refusal and critique it prompted.</p>
<p>On Monday, Dark Mofo <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dark-mofo-criticised-after-requesting-first-nations-blood-for-abusive-re-traumatising-art-project">released a statement</a> defending the project, called Union Flag. By Tuesday afternoon, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/mar/23/we-made-a-mistake-dark-mofo-pulls-the-plug-on-deeply-harmful-indigenous-blood-work">it had been cancelled</a>.</p>
<p>The critical question is how this was allowed to be programmed in the first place? And what structures support white curators to speak of Black traumas? </p>
<p>Trawlwoolway and Plengarmairenner Pakana visual artist and dancer, Jam Graham Blair <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dark-mofo-cancels-controversial-first-nations-blood-art-project-after-days-of-backlash">led the call</a> on social media to denounce the project, and is now among those calling for artists to <a href="https://www.change.org/p/museum-of-old-and-new-art-blak-list-mona">boycott</a> MONA.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black text on red background reads: 'black list mona'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391311/original/file-20210324-13-1k42r8v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Artists and curators such as Jam Graham Blair are now calling for a boycott of MONA until demands on organisational reforms are met.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.change.org/p/museum-of-old-and-new-art-blak-list-mona">James Tylor/change.org</a></span>
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<p>Yorta-Yorta curator Kimberley Moulton described “the neo-colonial curatorial practice that haunts us”. Wardandi (Nyoongar) curator Clothilde Bullen reminded the art world “this is why we need far more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts workers and curators in senior leadership and director positions.” </p>
<p>As Noongar writer and researcher Cass Lynch <a href="https://overland.org.au/2021/03/asking-for-our-blood/">wrote for Overland</a>: “the proposed artwork betrays itself as hinging on violence against Indigenous bodies.”</p>
<p>More than ever, we need Black curators who work from community standpoints.</p>
<h2>A track record</h2>
<p>Aboriginal blood is still being spilt in acts of generational colonial violence at the hands of the police. In the 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over 450 First Nations people have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/14/when-will-we-have-peace-grief-and-outrage-at-three-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-in-a-week">died in custody</a>.</p>
<p>As Aboriginal People, we know racism and white supremacy are not hidden in corners.
Indeed, MONA has a track record of unsettling practices and cancellations. In 2014, they pulled an Aboriginal DNA identity testing installation by Swiss artist Christoph Buchel after a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-25/mona-removes-aboriginal-dna-test-exhibit/5548838">similar outcry</a>.</p>
<p>Union Flag aimed to literally extract Aboriginal blood as an anthropological and biological specimen. Extracted to be used as paint without the bodies or sovereign voices it belongs to and within. </p>
<p>This is a deep triggering of the wounds caused by the exploitation done to and on the bodies of our Ancestors and Old People in the name of anthropology and science. Our remains are <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">held in museums</a> in Australia and around the world. </p>
<p>This is unfinished business unaided by empty performances of decolonial consciousness.</p>
<p>We are taught by our Elders that our bodies and all they hold are sacred, from our hair to our sweat.</p>
<p>Capitalism and colonialism work hand in hand in the art world, dominated by privileged white Australians, directors, curators, wealthy board members and customers. Few white artists are able to contend with the violence of the ongoing colonial project without literally using or alluding to the blood of Indigenous Peoples. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tjanpi-desert-weavers-show-us-that-traditional-craft-is-art-30243">The Tjanpi Desert Weavers show us that traditional craft is art</a>
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<h2>Resisting and contesting</h2>
<p>Aboriginal artists create work that is nuanced, complex, multi-layered and engaged with lived realities, the traumas caused by colonial violence and how to survive and thrive in spite of it.</p>
<p>Part of this is because of our abilities and skills to resist and contest the never-ended colonial project and all the tentacles of its violence. This violence that disturbs and unsettles us once again with the daily labour of responding to white peoples’ poorly constructed ideas.</p>
<p>MONA’s David Walsh <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-24/david-walsh-apology-over-mofo-blood-flag-controversy/100023988">has now apologised, saying</a> he “didn’t see the deeper consequences of this proposition” and Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said he had “made a mistake” in commissioning Union Flag.</p>
<p>But Dark Mofo know better. In partnership with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the 2019 festival presented the work of Trawlwoolway artist Dr Julie Gough. Her 25-year career survey show, <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/whats_on/newsselect/2019articles/julie_gough_tense_past">Tense Past</a>, showed her long engagement with art-making on the ongoing impact of colonisation on Tasmania’s First People.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julie-goughs-tense-past-reminds-us-how-the-brutalities-of-colonial-settlement-are-still-felt-today-118923">Julie Gough's 'Tense Past' reminds us how the brutalities of colonial settlement are still felt today</a>
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<p>Has lead curator Carmichael, who also sits on the board of the Australia Council, ensured he is complying with <a href="https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-arts/">arts protocols</a> for using First Nations cultural and intellectual property? </p>
<p>This isn’t about mistakes. This is about the wilful decision making focused on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-21/five-times-mona-caused-controversy/8460440">shock tactics and sensationalism</a> that is part of the Dark Mofo brand.</p>
<p>Aboriginal curators and artists have been asking for positions of leadership and decision making for decades. If MONA, Dark Mofo, and indeed all of Australia’s arts institutions centred First Nations people in collaborative leadership and curatorial positions, festivals could still make work that engages without shock, and without contributing to ongoing colonial trauma.</p>
<p>The criticism of Union Flag was not about censorship, cancel culture or halting personal expression. It is about accountability and ethics. </p>
<p>To recognise and memorialise First Nations grief and loss caused by ongoing colonialism (not an historical past tense, as referred to by this project) requires sovereign Aboriginal led and self-determined decisions.</p>
<p>This work continues to be done by artists and academics, such as <a href="https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/arts-in-daily-life/artist-stories/vicki-couzens/">Dr Vicki Couzens</a>’, <a href="https://theconversation.com/review-fiona-foleys-biting-the-clouds-is-a-visceral-look-at-opium-and-control-on-the-colonial-frontier-151748">Dr Fiona Foley</a>, <a href="https://www.djonmundine.com/">Djon Mundine</a> and many other Aboriginal community peoples, artists, activists, curators and educators. </p>
<p>Our peoples’ prior and informed consent is non-negotiable to making shared, collective projects.</p>
<p>We don’t need to see our blood to know we bleed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/review-fiona-foleys-biting-the-clouds-is-a-visceral-look-at-opium-and-control-on-the-colonial-frontier-151748">Review: Fiona Foley's Biting the Clouds is a visceral look at opium and control on the colonial frontier</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paola Balla does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Spanish artist Santiago Sierra’s request for the blood of First Nations’ people in a now cancelled artwork prompted widespread disgust. We need Black curators who work from community standpoints.Paola Balla, Lecturer in Indigenous Education and Indigenous art, PhD Candidate, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1338032020-03-17T01:24:49Z2020-03-17T01:24:49ZArts need a COVID stimulus package. Here’s what it should look like<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320903/original/file-20200316-27648-j39ass.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C2880%2C1914&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton/Sydney Writers Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1606, Shakespeare and his company bolted the doors of the Globe Theatre and fled London as bubonic plague led to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/24/shakespeares-great-escape-plague-1606--james-shapiro">total shutdown of theatres</a>. </p>
<p>Now we know what it must have felt like. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.broadsheet.com.au/national/city-file/article/live-list-australian-events-cancelled-due-coronavirus">sudden implosion</a> of Australia’s performing arts sector in recent days has been breathtaking. </p>
<p>Everything I’m about to write should begin with this necessary introduction: no-one in the cultural sector wants people to get sick and die from COVID-19. We know closing down festivals and theatres is the right thing to do. </p>
<p>Without exception, everyone I have talked to agrees with measures to reduce risks of infection and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-flatten-the-curve-of-coronavirus-a-mathematician-explains-133514">flatten the curve</a>. But closing down theatres doesn’t make paying the rent any easier. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-flatten-the-curve-of-coronavirus-a-mathematician-explains-133514">How to flatten the curve of coronavirus, a mathematician explains</a>
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<p>The disaster has affected companies large and small, from great cultural institutions such as the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/arts-centres-across-melbourne-close-en-masse-as-covid-19-fears-rise-20200315-p54abt.html">State Library of Victoria</a>, to one-person shows in the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/victoria-coronavirus-outbreak-melbourne-comedy-fest-cancelled/12053174">Melbourne International Comedy Festival</a>. </p>
<p>Some of the events taken down by COVID-19 are the jewels in the crown of Australian culture. Melbourne International Comedy Festival sells <a href="https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/about-us/background">more tickets than any other arts event</a> in the nation. Dark Mofo is one of the <a href="https://www.examiner.com.au/story/6672977/dark-mofo-cancellation-shocking-blow-to-tasmanian-tourism/">largest inbound tourism attractors</a> on the Tasmanian calendar. Sydney Writers’ Festival is <a href="https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2019/05/15/132855/swf-2019-paid-attendance-figures-book-sales-up-in-second-year-at-carriageworks/">Australia’s largest literary event</a>. </p>
<p>With government support and audience goodwill, these large events might be able to recover. Smaller organisations will struggle. With revenues vaporised and no chance of reopening for months, any company with a lease is in serious trouble. </p>
<p>The damage is not limited to performing arts. Film and television productions are shutting down, including Baz Luhrmann’s <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/03/baz-luhrmann-heads-into-quarantine-after-tom-hanks-diagnosis-1202883716/">Elvis biopic</a>. Tom Hanks has COVID-19 and Luhrmann and many of the crew are in quarantine. </p>
<p>The downturn is all the more devastating because of the insecurity of the cultural sector. After years of <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-arts-funding-in-australia-is-falling-and-local-governments-are-picking-up-the-slack-124160">federal funding cuts</a>, smaller Australian performing arts companies were already doing it tough. </p>
<p>Two-thirds of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-15/arts-entertainment-industry-thrown-into-turmoil-by-coronavirus/12057082">artists and cultural workers</a> are employed as casuals or sole traders. Some have savings; many don’t. Newstart is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/29/just-two-rentals-in-australia-affordable-for-single-people-on-newstart-report">not remotely enough</a> to pay the rent in a capital city. </p>
<p>Australia’s cultural sector requires a federal bail-out: a concerted policy that might staunch the bleeding and allow at least some of our cultural companies to survive. </p>
<h2>What would a stimulus package look like?</h2>
<p>To be effective, it should provide enough of a boost to ameliorate the COVID-19 shock. The Morrison government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/cash-handout-of-750-for-6-5-million-pensioners-and-others-receiving-government-payments-133512">first stimulus package</a> totals A$17.6 billion, about 1.2% of gross domestic product. </p>
<p>Most of this stimulus is targeted towards pensioners, business investment and incorporated companies. The cultural sector will get some benefit, but the neediest workers, such as casuals and sole traders, will miss out completely. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrisons-coronavirus-package-is-a-good-start-but-hell-probably-have-to-spend-more-133511">Morrison's coronavirus package is a good start, but he'll probably have to spend more</a>
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<p>According to <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/economic-value-cultural-and-creative-activity">satellite national accounts data</a> from the federal Department of Communications, the libraries, museums, performing arts and music sectors are worth collectively around A$8.1 billion in economic output in 2020. Screen production is worth another A$1.18 billion, <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2019/10-31-drama-report-2018-19-australian-titles">according to Screen Australia</a>. </p>
<p>A 1.2% stimulus to the COVID-19 affected industries of the Australian cultural sector would total around A$111 million. Given the severity of the downturn, a 2% stimulus across two quarters would be more appropriate. </p>
<p>A 2% stimulus tallies up to around A$186 million – barely a rounding error in the context of the Morrison government’s spend this week. </p>
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<h2>How should the cultural stimulus be spent?</h2>
<p>Economists stress stimulus spending should be <a href="https://blogs.imf.org/2020/03/16/policy-action-for-a-healthy-global-economy/#more-28600">effective and timely</a>. </p>
<p>In the cultural sector, this would be best done by directing funds to casual workers and sole traders, small-to-medium arts companies, and cultural businesses facing oblivion within weeks if not extended a lifeline. </p>
<p>Reaching cultural workers won’t be easy, but support for sole-trading artists and cultural workers would be an excellent start. They could be readily identified via the Australian Tax Office and should be provided with a stimulus payment in much the same way the Rudd government paid ordinary citizens in 2008. </p>
<p>Another way to reach artists is via collection agencies, such as <a href="https://apraamcos.com.au">APRA-AMCOS</a> with a database of tens of thousands of musicians paid royalties for live performance. A federal stimulus to live music could pay every musician lodging a valid live performance return with APRA-AMCOS a one-off payment of, say, A$1,000. </p>
<p>Actors and performing artists are more difficult to identify, but with enough policy innovation stimulus should be possible. A payment could be made to every individual with a show in an eligible festival, such Dark Mofo, the Comedy Festival or Sydney Writers’ Festival. </p>
<p>Cultural firms also need support, particularly where current circumstances have rendered them rapidly insolvent. Some existing stimulus measures will apply here, but these could be built upon with culture-specific programs providing interest-free loans to critical businesses such as small music venues, independent cinemas and theatres. </p>
<p>An emergency funding package to the small-to-medium arts companies funded by the Australia Council would be an excellent policy even in the absence of the current crisis, given the centrality of these firms to Australian cultural life. A one-off A$100,000 payment to all <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/arts-organisations-hit-by-funding-bad-news-20190812-p52g9x.html">162 smaller companies</a> invited to apply for four-year funding in 2019 would cost A$16.2 million and would be an extremely well-targeted measure. </p>
<p>Screen Australia is well placed to deliver stimulus to the screen sector, with interest-free loan guarantees to cancelled or postponed productions, and individual stimulus payments to key production companies and film and television workers.</p>
<p>Australia’s artists and cultural organisations are part of a lean and efficient sector. They put on shows that millions of Australians love. During the bushfire crisis over the summer, artists and cultural organisations were <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-help-communities-during-a-crisis-not-hinder-why-are-we-still-told-they-dont-matter-129695">at the forefront</a> of fundraising efforts. Now is the time to return that favour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Eltham has previously received arts funding from the Australia Council. He is a member of APRA-AMCOS. </span></em></p>The cancellation of cultural events will be devastating for artists and arts workers. A $186 million stimulus package could help stem the damage.Ben Eltham, Lecturer, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1189232019-06-24T01:43:46Z2019-06-24T01:43:46ZJulie Gough’s ‘Tense Past’ reminds us how the brutalities of colonial settlement are still felt today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280138/original/file-20190619-118514-k9th1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C4%2C1570%2C1063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still from Gough's video Hunting Ground (pastoral).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The phrase “colonial settlement” sounds benign, but Julie Gough’s Tense Past presents compelling evidence to the contrary. </p>
<p>Since 1994, Gough has been searching the archives, piecing together the evidence and representing Tasmania’s overlooked history of dispossession and frontier war. </p>
<p>She has made art installations by collecting maps, correspondence and text, found objects and natural materials, and by recording her own movement – walking, running and driving – through her ancestors’ land. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tasmanias-black-war-a-tragic-case-of-lest-we-remember-25663">Tasmania's Black War: a tragic case of lest we remember?</a>
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<p>In this major exhibition, surveying 25 years of her work, Trawlwoolway artist Gough generously shares her own, and her family’s experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people to skilfully entwine the past with the present.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280141/original/file-20190619-52783-99exu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Julie Gough’s major exhibition reconnects us to the consequences of the frontier wars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit: Dark Mofo/Rosie Hastie, 2019</span></span>
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<h2>A legacy of early Australian landscapes</h2>
<p>We understand our colonial history through art. In Hunting Ground Pastoral, Gough counters the bucolic and idyllic narrative of Australian colonial paintings. </p>
<p>Representing new lives in a “new” land, colonial painters like <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/48.1985/">John Glover</a> and <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/joseph-lycett-the-pastoral-landscape-in-early-colonial-australia/">Joseph Lycett</a> helped to create — and continue to maintain today — an official story of peaceful settlement in their paintings of Australia. </p>
<p>Their early landscapes give the impression of Europeans farming a fertile and ordered countryside. Aboriginal people are generally not present at all, but if they are, they are portrayed in some parallel Antipodean Arcadia, living harmoniously in an environment unaffected by European settlement. </p>
<p>In this video, Gough corrects the visual record. She recreates hidden scenes from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/tasmanias-black-war-a-tragic-case-of-lest-we-remember-25663">Black Wars</a> by animating a series of historic prints of familiar Tasmanian locations such as the village of <a href="http://www.richmondvillage.com.au/">Richmond</a>, a major tourist destination just outside Hobart.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Julie Gough, Hunting Ground (Pastoral) Van Diemen’s Land, 2017.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXqoaeRqSjo">video</a> progresses, each print is slowly inscribed with quotations from historical documents detailing a massacre that occurred at the same site: </p>
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<p>Launceston … pursuit 12 miles … four men, one woman and a child killed. </p>
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<p>Blood red arrows, crosses or circles appear beneath the superimposed words and a blood red stain seeps into the landscape. Each image is then slowly obscured by soil until it is completely buried, just as these colonial paintings in their gilded frames have painted out a history in which the hunting grounds of Gough’s ancestors become the site where they themselves were hunted and murdered.</p>
<h2>Brutal dispossession</h2>
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<span class="caption">Field plan of military movements against Aboriginal inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land, 1831.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Curated by Mary Knights, Gough’s sculptures, videos and installations are deftly supported by colonial artworks and artefacts from <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au">TMAG</a> and other major collections.</p>
<p>And just as Gough re-inserts Aboriginal resistance fighters into the landscape of the colonial painting, these genteel portraits, items of furniture, cutlery and letters remind us that Tasmanian history was not some abstract process, but a series of deliberate acts carried out by men and women of refined tastes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peta-clancy-brings-a-hidden-victorian-massacre-to-the-surface-with-undercurrent-113350">Peta Clancy brings a hidden Victorian massacre to the surface with Undercurrent</a>
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<p>The 1830 <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-black-line">Black Line</a> map graphically illustrates the tactical manoeuvres of a cordon of soldiers, police and settlers moving across the island north to south, attempting to force all remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal people off their land. </p>
<p>A campaign desk with a sealed box provides the staging to re-imagine the moment that the plan of attack was conceived, approved, activated and managed.</p>
<p>And in her piece, We Ran/I am, Gough gives human form to these brutal attempts to dispossess Aboriginal people and links herself to her ancestors. Retracing the Black Line on foot, she captures her own body running and stumbling in 14 still images. </p>
<p>Above the prints hang seven, earth-stained pairs of calico trousers that she recreated to resemble those described in a journal entry by the “protector” of Aborigines <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/robinson-george-augustus-2596">George Augustus Robinson</a> as “excellent things”, because they made it impossible to run.</p>
<h2>The first stolen generation</h2>
<p>One of the most powerful ways in which Gough connects the past with the present is through the stories of children. In a sound installation she sings a Tasmanian Aboriginal children’s song, Song for the Aborigines, that was transcribed by Mrs Maria Logan in 1856. The historic manuscript is also displayed in the gallery. </p>
<p>But she also tells us about the first generation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations">stolen</a> children, long before the term was first adopted, in her piece, “Missing or Dead”. </p>
<p>Over a ten-year period, Gough gathered the names of Aboriginal children who had been living with non-Aboriginal people up until 1840. </p>
<p>She identified more than 180 individuals and created a haunting memorial to these forgotten children by inscribing some of these names (including three of her ancestors) onto unfinished tea-tree spears. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280137/original/file-20190619-118526-jol8g1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julie Gough, Some Tasmanian Aboriginal children living with non-Aboriginal people before 1840, 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dark Mofo/Rosie Hastie, 2019</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bundled together and constrained by the suspended frame of a broken chair, names like “Girl x”, “Goldie” and “Charley x” are burnt onto the bare wood, offering a sharp, poignant glimpse of their lives and so resisting their erasure from history.</p>
<p>Beyond the gallery, Gough extends this work in a temporary memorial that forms part of the Dark Mofo’s <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/map/dark-path">Dark Path</a> program.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-tasmanias-aboriginal-people-reclaimed-a-language-palawa-kani-99764">Explainer: how Tasmania's Aboriginal people reclaimed a language, palawa kani</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>More than 180 posters bearing the names of stolen and missing children are nailed to the trees in Queen’s Domain, referencing how <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/governor-arthurs-proclamation-aborigines">proclamations</a> were displayed in colonial times. </p>
<p>This work illustrates the tragedy and scale of child removal while also alluding to white anxieties about <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-country-of-lost-children-20090814-el8d.html">losing children</a> in the Australian bush.</p>
<p>Gough tells us she has only been able to track ten of these missing children’s descendants through the archives. The tragic loss is not confined to the past but continues through time: the stolen children of the 19th Century are the missing generations of today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280140/original/file-20190619-118501-7yr5ck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julie Gough, Missing or Dead. Posters of stolen or missing children are nailed to trees along Dark Mofo’s ‘Dark Path’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dark Mofo/Rémi Chauvin, 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tense Past reconnects our hearts and minds to the consequences of the frontier wars, the missing ancestors and lost generations, and the impact of colonisation on Tasmania’s first people — then and now.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Julie Gough – Tense Past Presented by Dark Mofo and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart 7 June – 3 November 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Shiels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This major exhibition examines Tasmania’s overlooked history of dispossession and frontier war.Julie Shiels, Lecturer - School of Art, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1185802019-06-13T01:32:00Z2019-06-13T01:32:00ZDark Mofo 2019: a journey through the inferno to robots and extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279261/original/file-20190613-32317-150j2xv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mona Confessional 2016 – 19. The art unveiled for this year's Dark Mofo is a disturbing journey into our future.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julie Shiels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">Dark Mofo’s</a> winter solstice events populate many above-ground sites across Hobart, its heart of darkness will always be the subterranean galleries of the Museum of Old and New Art. </p>
<p>The museum just got a lot bigger with the opening of a $27 million extension housing four major new artworks from renowned contemporary artists. The works – by Alfredo Jaar, Ai Weiwei, Oliver Beer and Christopher Townend – have been unveiled in time for this year’s festival, in conjunction with a new temporary installation by Berlin-based Simon Denny. </p>
<p>These new commissions contribute to an already impressive collection of art. The physicality of the newly excavated spaces adds a compelling dimension, and the new works offer immersive and interactive ways of engaging with some of the darker questions of our times. </p>
<p>The extension is called <a href="https://mona.net.au/museum/siloam">Siloam</a>, after an ancient water channel built in Jerusalem. As visitors traverse its tunnels, hidden movement sensors activate Townend’s sound installation, Requiem for Vermin. Comprising 230 speakers, the composition has been configured to flood the senses with harmony and texture and trick the brain into hearing what is not there, like full orchestras, choirs, and piano and sounds from nature. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279020/original/file-20190611-32335-16zur4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Siloam, Mona’s new underground extension.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy Mona, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Accessed via a tunnel and operating at a scale reminiscent of large caves in Vietnam and Cambodia, where temples were secreted to avoid the bombing raids of the American war, Ai Weiwei’s White House offers sanctuary from the visual and sensory bombardment.</p>
<p>The artist uses industrial paint to recuperate a Qing Dynasty home that was scheduled for demolition. This massive ready-made is supported on clear, crystal orbs that absorb and mirror the surroundings, offering a fluid, milky abstraction when viewed from above. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279031/original/file-20190612-32342-1q69cqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White House, 2015 by Ai Weiwei.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy Mona, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the tranquillity of this cavern, a staircase leads up to Alfredo Jaar’s immersive, experiential journey through hell, purgatory and heaven inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century poem The Divine Comedy.</p>
<p>The entrance is a portal of devil’s-cloak red – only ten people can enter at a time. There are strict protocols and instructions – an amalgam of performative ritual and briefing about the required behaviours – including a ban on speaking whilst inside the work.</p>
<p>Silently bonding, we are led into the first chamber, where the senses are activated via the ears, skin and eyes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-dantes-divine-comedy-84603">Guide to the Classics: Dante’s Divine Comedy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Heat, sound, light and silence are employed in a highly staged and meticulously directed experience, which according to Jaar, references a hell of our own making – that is climate change. </p>
<p>As we move through purgatory and on to paradise, the artist draws on his skills as filmmaker and architect to manage the combination of space and image for poignancy and impact. His careful modulation of media ensures this is much more than art as spectacle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279021/original/file-20190611-32347-1i2gfyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Entrance to The Divine Comedy, 2019, by Alfredo Jaar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of Mona, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Divine Comedy offers us an opportunity to traverse the polarities of life and death, heaven and hell, sin and redemption. The latter is also a concern of Oliver Beer’s interactive sculpture, Mona Confessional, which creates a bridge between the interior and exterior of the building.</p>
<p>The internal sculpture is a soft, dark felt spiral like a giant ear canal; the external component a giant ear-trumpet in weathering steel. </p>
<p>On fumbling their way into the dimly-lit centre of the inner ear, the visitor encounters sounds spilling from the outside world and is invited to confess and reveal their innermost thoughts. </p>
<p>On the outside, another anonymous person listens to these thoughts. Neither party even knows where the other is located.</p>
<h2>A disturbing game</h2>
<p>Denny’s installation also uses interactivity and play. His concerns though, are less metaphysical, and more of a hard-edged critique of capitalism. Like Jaar, Denny warns of a climate change catastrophe of our own making.</p>
<p>Exhibited across three galleries, Denny’s works present an unsettling examination of the mining industry. It shows how technology is changing the nature of human labour, hastening species extinction and spawning a new industry of data collection. </p>
<p>Making use of the O (Mona’s mobile device that serves as a digital art guide), some parts of the exhibition are embedded with data that can be scanned by the device to reveal more content and information, in the form of videos and vignettes.</p>
<p>The spare and cavernous first room holds just one object, a cage that could be a bird aviary. On closer inspection, this unnervingly industrial object/sculpture reveals itself as the life-sized realisation of an actual patent drawing (owned by Amazon) of a cage. </p>
<p>Its purpose, if ever made, is to protect the body of a lone human sitting among robots in a fully-automated workspace. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279029/original/file-20190611-32342-1io0ipv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simon Denny, Amazon Worker Cage Patent (US 9,280,157 B2:</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julie Shiels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the wall of the same room we are introduced to videos of the endangered King Island Brown Thornbill. The reference to the canary in the coal mine is deliberate: the extinction of the Thornbill heralds the potential disappearance not just of the human worker, but of the human species. </p>
<p>The second room, by contrast, is a riot of movement and colour. At first glance the life-sized sculptures of industrial machinery look real under harsh artificial lights – it could be a trade show replete with exhibits and interactive screens. </p>
<p>We must focus our O devices on images of the endangered Thornbill to gather information about the rare metals being mined.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279022/original/file-20190611-32361-ywam8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simon Denny, Mine, 2019, installation view at Mona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford.
Image Courtesy Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Denny has extended the game metaphor by turning the floor into an enlarged version of the classic Australian board game Squatter. Australia no longer rides on the sheep’s back but instead hitches a lift with the fully-automated, long-wall tunnel miner. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279028/original/file-20190611-32356-1598bsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Simon Denny, Mine, 2019, installation view at Mona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image Courtesy Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
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<p>Either way, the accumulated wealth is based on the same colonial legacy of dispossession: prospectors stake their claims just as the squatters settled “empty” land and called it “mine”. </p>
<p>Denny has even created a new board game for our current era. It’s called Extractor, and also serves as a catalogue for the show.</p>
<p>The final room offers a survey of work by other artists that also addresses the merging of the human and the technological to meet the contemporary demand for labour. But it is also a ruse to drive home the point that everyone is in on the game, including Mona. </p>
<p>At the end of the exhibition, it is revealed how the museum is tracking our behaviour and gathering our data through our use of their mobile device. In this context we are all players in the game.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">Dark Mofo</a> is on until June 23. Simon Denny’s <a href="https://mona.net.au/museum/exhibitions/mine">Mine</a> is at Mona until April 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Shiels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mona’s new subterranean extension adds a compelling dimension to the art of Dark Mofo 2019. Upstairs, a series of interactive sculptures contemplates our automated future.Julie Shiels, Lecturer - School of Art, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/980032018-06-17T18:54:24Z2018-06-17T18:54:24ZHobart’s poorer suburbs are missing out on the ‘MONA effect’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223299/original/file-20180615-32339-1924s2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most of MONA's interstate visitors go to the museum without stopping in the nearby suburbs. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ozmark17/33952082140/in/photolist-TJei9y-aG4KBv-AHszaG-b3uaHT-aFmEdR-aWGDPt-BEZhnn-UK8arY-9w9hoS-AHt3CY-aWGzHT-iRwody-aFPE5r-dc8ZxR-aWGBXi-dJ4zgj-bB9wZX-boeDHm-boeDLU-depywd-BCFhkC-aWGCSg-ghfA7t-iRuX61-dJ4B8J-aWGESc-9RNRTN-AHsAa7-aG3V6a-25kP8Aj-BxGpTX-VkoRhv-nkktGq-bB9F8e-AHsNKs-dc9dqJ-dNo4B2-aG1Zpg-bB9wAc-eaVCdd-depzks-BxGseP-9w69AB-iRtpx1-aWGzf2-B7tcB6-dJ4BZo-aG35jD-aG5u52-9RNRTG">Mark Pegrum/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Popular opinion has it that MONA, Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-08/mona-effect-ripples-out-to-regional-tasmania/9837626">transforming Tasmania</a>. That the state is no longer the poor and backward cousin, the economy is booming, and we are leaders in contemporary culture. </p>
<p>The buzz on the streets of Hobart during <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">this year’s Dark Mofo</a> is unwaning, despite being in its sixth iteration. A tendency to hibernate through Tasmania’s cold midwinter is now a time for vibrancy and a skinny dip – at least for tourists. </p>
<p>However contrary to hype around this “MONA effect”, the museum’s benefits do not seem to be being shared with <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/glenorchy/home">Glenorchy</a>, the municipality it is located in. Glenorchy is ranked eighth most disadvantaged out of 29 municipalities in the state and includes some of the most disadvantaged suburbs nationwide. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-goes-to-mona-peering-behind-the-flannelette-curtain-73369">Who goes to MONA? Peering behind the 'flannelette curtain'</a>
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<p>More generally, some local artists are <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-09/mona-dark-mofo-seen-as-blessing-and-curse-for-local-creatives/9770904">struggling to maintain a place</a> as the MONA juggernaut rolls out its festivals, and its power and influence. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-03/home-prices-fall-in-cities-rise-in-the-regions/9612534">Hobart’s house prices</a> are rising faster than any other capital city, with increasing scrutiny on how <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/hobart-suburb-battery-point-quarantined-from-airbnb/9845976">visitor housing</a>, such as Airbnb, might be affecting prices. Tasmania is already <a href="http://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/1055693/Tasmania-Report-Saul-Eslake-2017.pdf">economically polarised</a>. </p>
<p>Taking a snapshot of <a href="https://tourismtracer.com">tracking data</a> from 472 interstate and overseas tourists in 2016, we analysed where and how tourists travelled before and after they visited MONA. Most of the visitors to MONA were from New South Wales and Victoria. They also had <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-goes-to-mona-peering-behind-the-flannelette-curtain-73369">higher incomes and levels of education</a>. We found that these visitors tend to take the MONA ferry to and from the museum, or drive straight there and back with no stops. Without shopping in Glenorchy or visiting other parts of the municipality, almost no benefits are passed on to this area, whether these are direct economic benefits from shopping or accommodation, or indirect benefits from social interactions and cultural exchange.</p>
<p>In some respects, this is unsurprising. Tourists go to places that have amenities for tourists – such as Hobart’s waterfront. Tourism and art also tends to drive gentrification – an escalation of real estate prices as poor inner city suburbs and post-industrial sites are transformed into creative chic. This wouldn’t be a good outcome for places like Glenorchy, which many of Tasmania’s low income earners call home. These are places imbued with a sense of community that supports many in non-financial ways. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/incarceration-and-times-passing-are-eloquently-explored-at-dark-mofo-98164">Incarceration and time's passing are eloquently explored at Dark Mofo</a>
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<p>Not all of MONA’s visitors are high income earners with a university education. We also found that it is MONA’s lower socio-economic visitors who are most likely to stop in Glenorchy, to shop and visit family and friends. These are the tourists who could help extend MONA’s benefits into the places most in need, without destroying these communities. To boost the numbers of lower socio-economic tourists, Mona could extend its free museum entry for Tasmanians to all visitors with government concession cards. </p>
<p>But the limited responsibilities of private bodies such as MONA, means that it is governments’ role to distribute the benefits of tourism and economic growth. Tourism Tasmania spends <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/news/politics/tourism-tasmania-chief-james-cretan-says-marketing-spend-yields-sensational-results/news-story/a72685b7d5c72ec6c8f94d65b7b08e73">millions of dollars on marketing</a>. Directing this towards the lower socioeconomic tourist market could boost visitation to tourism icons and local shopping centres and communities. </p>
<p>More broadly, the government urgently needs to plan for how tourism growth translates into improved health care, education and job prospects. Tourism only matters if it sustains all Tasmanians, and without demonstrated overall improvement, the value of tourism is questionable. </p>
<p>MONA is held in high regard by most Tasmanians. The museum and biannual festivals are described as unprecedented acts of generosity on behalf of owner David Walsh. There is widespread support for MONA initiatives: it’s vision for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-11/mona-waterfront-vision-to-take-three-decades/8109566">Macquarie Point</a> and <a href="https://mona.net.au/in-the-works/hotel">Hotel Mona</a>. </p>
<p>This goodwill is likely to fade if the MONA effect simply reinforces existing iniquities. To remain relevant, MONA’s presence in Tasmania needs go beyond development proposals and sensationalist art. Government must harness tourism for the benefit of all. High tourist numbers and spending are not ends in and of themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Booth receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP170100096) and collaborates on Tourism Tracer, partly funded by Tasmanian Government (State Growth), Tourism Industry Council Tasmania and Federal Group. She previously worked on the 'Mona Effect' ARC Linkage (LP120200302 ). Kate is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia and sat on its Tasmanian Committee until December 2017. She also donates to planning- and environment-related non-government organisations.</span></em></p>MONA could encourage more low-income visitors by making entry free for all concession card owners.Kate Booth, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Planning, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981642018-06-12T06:08:56Z2018-06-12T06:08:56ZIncarceration and time’s passing are eloquently explored at Dark Mofo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222730/original/file-20180612-52448-1yyilmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gianni Colombo, Spazio Elastico / Elastic Space, 1966-7. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Museum of Old and New Art (Mona).</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: A Journey to Freedom, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery/Zero at MONA.</em></p>
<p>The gig that drew the big crowds on the opening weekend of Hobart’s 2018 Dark Mofo festival was a free party to launch Zero, the new exhibition at MONA. More than 5,000 people flocked to the museum on the promise of “fire, feasting and general wild abandon”. However the very first event of the festival was a much more intimate affair — a performance of Olivier Messiaen’s <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/program/quartet-for-the-end-of-time/">Quartet for the End of Time</a> at Port Arthur, the remote penal colony that is emblematic of Tasmania’s brutal colonial past.</p>
<p>An audience squeezed into the cold, candlelit space of the Separate Prison to hear a piece first performed on decrepit instruments in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1941. Messiaen composed the quartet for the instruments and the musicians available to him behind the wire of Stalag VIII-A — a combination of piano, violin, cello and clarinet. One of the most evocative and haunting musical works of the 20th century, the Quartet elegantly combined Dark Mofo’s dual themes of incarceration and time.</p>
<p>The affective dimensions of this soft opening not only signalled the key concepts of the festival but also showed us how artists respond to difficult times with creativity, determination and ingenuity. These ideas are reiterated throughout the program, including the two main visual art offerings, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s exhibition A Journey to Freedom and Mona’s Zero — a reprise of the post-war expression of optimism where artists used whatever materials came to hand. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222723/original/file-20180612-52451-13g4uw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ricky Maynard, No More Than What You See series, installation view.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dark Mofo/Rémi Chauvin</span></span>
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<p>The 13 artists in <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/whats_on/exhibitions/current_upcoming/info/a_journey_to_freedom">A Journey to Freedom</a> give expression to the often unseen experience of incarceration from different personal, political and cultural perspectives. Ricky Maynard’s brutally accurate black and white photographs in No More Than What You See show us the ravages of imprisonment on the bodies and psyches of Indigenous inmates in Australian prisons, while Sam Wallman’s animated comic, A Guard’s Story, documents the mental deterioration of a reluctant worker in an immigration detention centre. </p>
<p>Projected on the wall, Wallman’s disarming glimpses are rendered with spare detail and animated so that both text and image quaver like the voice of an unconfident narrator. The whimsical becomes chilling as the inhumanity unfolds. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222724/original/file-20180612-52439-zn61tt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sam Wallman with journalist Nick Olle, producer Pat Grant and Pat Armstrong, A Guard’s Story: at work in our detention centres.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Still image, Illustrated narrative video 2014.</span></span>
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<p>The male body is at the centre of Jhafis Quintero’s 10-part video work 10 years in Jail. Each screen enacts a performance against boredom, revealing the role of ritual action in surviving confinement. The tedium of time passing is amplified by the different registers of rhythmic sound — of breathing, counting, or pacing.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222726/original/file-20180612-52429-ncnxqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jhafis Quintero, Mirror (video still, cropped), 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The artist group ZERO were not seeking to escape the tedium of incarceration, but they did want to leave the past behind and escape the heavy mood of post-war Germany.</p>
<p>They worked with readily available materials such as metal, cardboard, glass, plastic, cloth, mirrors and smoke, and focussed on themes of light, space, movement, reflection, vibration, structure and colour. The founders, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, believed that their era offered a new beginning for art, and this aspiration attracted artists from beyond Germany, including Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana and Yayoi Kusama.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222727/original/file-20180612-52458-1bt5to9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Yves Klein, Pigment bleu sec (Dry Blue Pigment) 1957; recreated in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Museum of Old and New Art (Mona)</span></span>
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<p>Mattijs Visser, founding director of the international ZERO Foundation, curated this show for MONA to reflect the ideas of the founders, and at first glance, vibration, rather than time, seems to the organising theme. </p>
<p>Yves Klein’s vast, floor-based carpet of dry blue pigment flickers and shimmers and many other artworks incorporate light and movement. But they also use ephemeral, everyday objects that resist preservation that were not easily commodified by the art market. The theme of time is thus addressed by the impermanent nature of the artworks. </p>
<p>Gianni Colombo’s Spazio Elastico is a room geometrically defined my multiple pieces of string lit with ultra-violet. Enrico Castellani’s Il muro del tempo: seven metronomes count time but are out of time with one another; without intervention, they must wind down and stop. </p>
<p>In observing Henk Peeters’ Akwarel, a wall of water-filled plastic bags that glitter like jewels, we become conscious of the labour of filling and hanging the bags, and then emptying the water out again when the work is de-installed. We know too, that if the work were left in place indefinitely, the bags would eventually leak or break or drop and fall. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222728/original/file-20180612-52439-1fk1mqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Akwarel (watercolour), Henk Peeters, 1966, recreated 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julie Shiels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ideas about time, containment and release are addressed and expanded symbolically and conceptually in performative works by Mike Parr and Tanya Lee. In <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/australian-artist-to-live-underneath-the-bitumen-for-three-days/news-story/c844db33e211fc63f334dee9cf1f9e0c">Underneath the Bitumen</a> from Thursday, Parr will have himself interred for 72 hours beneath a busy road in Hobart’s CBD to memorialise the victims of totalitarianism and raise questions about isolation, oppression and the legitimacy of the things that slip from view. </p>
<p>Isolation and disappearance — in the out-of-sight, out-of-mind sense — was also a theme in Landing, where Lee invited swimmers to join her at the Hobart Aquatic Centre for a 24-hour relay. The distance swum — 431-kilometres — equivalent to the separation between Australia and Manus Island.</p>
<p>The Dark Mofo festivities will be over by the end of June, A journey to Freedom will be bumped out in July and ZERO will return to Europe when it closes in April 2019. However, one new work commissioned by MONA and launched during the festival will continue to produce art 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the next 50 years. Cameron Robbins’ Wind Section Instrumental builds on the kinetic legacy of the ZERO artists and harnesses the randomness of weather patterns. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222729/original/file-20180612-52414-trbtto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cameron Robbins, detail, Wind Section Instrumental, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julie Shiels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His wind-powered drawing machine transcribes air currents onto paper, materialising the invisible and ephemeral forces of nature. This complex feat of sculptural engineering will produce one five-metre-long, black-and-white drawing every month. </p>
<p>From the delicate and enigmatic lines of light breezes to the dark, densely overwritten snarls produced by furious storms, Robbin’s wind drawings articulate another enduring reflection on the passing of time — a theme that shapes Dark Mofo 2018.</p>
<p><em>Zero at <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/program/mona/zero-grand-opening/">Dark Mofo</a> runs until Monday 22 April 2019.</em></p>
<p><em>A Journey to Freedom is at the <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/whats_on/exhibitions/current_upcoming/info/a_journey_to_freedom">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery </a>until 29 July.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Shiels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a Journey to Freedom, 13 artists give expression to the experience of imprisonment. In Zero, artists are seeking to escape the past.Julie Shiels, Lecturer - School of Art, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793452017-06-14T06:13:32Z2017-06-14T06:13:32ZTrepidation and delight: experiencing Dark Mofo with a three-year-old<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173553/original/file-20170613-12616-1n88rid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chris Levine's iy_project at Hobart's Dark Mofo</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dark Mofo/Lusy Productions, 2017 Image Courtesy Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As usual, this year’s Dark Mofo has drawn a crowd of thousands from across Australia and the globe. Despite being known for its dark subject matter and evocative themes - this year it is Silence - the festival has become a family event and from dusk, the streets start to fill with a mass of rugged-up people of all ages, including small children.</p>
<p>This year, I am exploring the festival with a dear friend and her very excited three-year-old daughter, little A. As an inexperienced “child handler” and non-parent, I wonder: Is it possible to experience and enjoy art, particularly Dark Mofo art, with a little person?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173701/original/file-20170614-30107-1ou6a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dark Park at Dark Mofo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dark Mofo/Lusy Productions, 2017 Image Courtesy Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our adventure begins at the fringes with a trip to <a href="http://www.contemporaryarttasmania.org/exhibitions">Occasions at Contemporary Art Tasmania</a>. We are greeted with a drink and make our way into the main gallery space, which smells like fresh dirt. It is set up like a low-fi garden bar with potted plants, ottomans, geometric furniture and couches. The artist and host, Isabel Lewis, is DJing at a small booth creating an ambient soundscape of voice and synthesizer. We sit down, look around and share a quick “Is this it?” glance. Conscious of A’s limited attention span, we psychically agree to finish our drinks and make a respectful exit. Meanwhile, A runs off and starts climbing the furniture.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, she has explored most of the plants and surfaces and we can feel the window of entertainment closing fast. A boredom tantrum starts to build and we gather our belongings. As we move towards the exit, Isabel (the artist) intersects our departure and invites A to describe the scent that is being pumped out of a black box she is carrying that resembles a hard drive. “Outside”, A yells, “dirt and plants!” </p>
<p>The artist nods and tells us that the scent is her interpretation of a garden developed in collaboration with the Norwegian chemist Sissel Tolaas. The smell we had initially dismissed as simply soil, is this constructed scent.</p>
<p>We pay closer attention and note that the scent captures wet soil, freshly cut grass and the mingling of plant leaves, sunshine and moisture. As we sit together and talk, platters are passed around with fresh treats. Soon we are a little community, sitting together, eating, smelling each other’s hair (yes, indeed) and sharing stories about art and what it means to live a good life.</p>
<p>This is the work. Indeed, Occasions is not an installation, but rather the resulting social interactions and individual experiences created through the bringing together of different sensory elements: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Presented over three evenings, Occasions changes in response to the audience, featuring different scents, food, sound and performance.</p>
<p>The difficulty with this work is that it is largely dependent on the host to facilitate an entry point for impatient visitors (like us) wanting an immediate spectacle. However, given time and when understood as an encompassing experience, it draws attention to the importance of mindful engagement with our senses and the simple joy of being in, and sharing, an environment.</p>
<h2>Curiosities and laser</h2>
<p>The next day we start our art journey early after a recommendation to visit to <a href="http://www.clarenceartsandevents.net/events/dark-mofo-milan-milojevic-wunderkammerama/">Wunderkammerama by Milan Milojevic at Rosny Barn</a> on the Eastern Shore. Drawing on the idea of the Wunderkammer – 19th century cabinets of curiosity – this exhibition is an immediate win for all. </p>
<p>The exhibition draws on Luis Borges’ 1957 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16568.The_Book_of_Imaginary_Beings">Book of Imaginary Beings</a>. In it, a collection of objects and images of hybrid creatures and fantastical scenes create a storybook space that cleverly melds elements of scientific illustration and inquiry with myth and imagined worlds. The colourful and intensely detailed works, including paper constructions, digital prints, miniature sculptures and theatrically lit dioramas, are rendered all the more wonderful by the joy and amazement of A’s delighted and curious reaction to them.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the Wunderkammerama exhibition by Milan Milojevic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Natalie Mendham</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The intimacy of Wunderkammerama is contrasted by a subsequent visit to the immersive spectacle of Dark Park opposite the Centre for the Arts in Evans Street. As we enter, we are immediately drawn to Chris Levine’s large-scale laser installation iy-project, set to an ambient electronic soundtrack by Marco Perry and Robert Del Naja (of Massive Attack fame). </p>
<p>With a primary palette of neon red, pink, blue and purple and repeating lines and geometric patterns, the work has an 80s aesthetic that conjures links to Tron, Max Headroom and past imagined futures. Most of the crowd gathers between three LED-topped towers from which lasers and smoke emanate. Viewed from a distance, the work appears like a retro imagining of an alien landing in which the visitors communicate through the subtle interplay of light and sound.</p>
<p>An unfortunate consequence of the impressive scale and spectacle of the work is that the experiential elements are easily overlooked. Indeed, the movement of the eye across from tower to tower creates a residual sine-wave pattern effect. The interaction between smoke and laser also results in layers of clearly delineated clouds. There are moments, too, in which the sound is echoed in the coalescing shapes and shimmering threads of the laser.</p>
<h2>Sacred geometries</h2>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">iy_project - Chris Levine - Dark Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit: Dark Mofo/Lusy Productions, 2017 Image Courtesy Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The work is also connected through laser light trails to an industrial shed at the back of the park. A series of red lights guide us to the site and we see the companion piece iy-project 136.1 Hz. This work is more intense. The soundtrack includes chanting and a rumbling bass that passes through the body, warming the chest with deep vibrations. Combined with three MONA cross signs, in succession through the space (two physical structures and one composed of shadow), the work has religious and transcendent undertones. </p>
<p>While viewing the work, a friend comments that Levine’s installations are, in fact, based on sacred geometries and meditation frequencies. These connections, like the subtleties of the previous work, are clearly lost on A, but watching her, laughing and trying to touch the strings of laser light, we are reminded that it is enough that art is felt and experienced individually.</p>
<p>We return to the entry area of Dark Park with the aim of seeing <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/program/dark-park/artworks/alfredo-jaar-the-sound-of-silence">Alfredo Jaar’s Sound of Silence</a>. We practise being quiet (as requested) and make it past the huge facade of intense fluorescent light into the internal viewing chamber, before realising the work - both in subject matter and with moments of loud sound and flashing light - is a poor choice for a small child. Reflecting on the life of photojournalist Kevin Carter, it provides a deeply moving insight into the story behind one of the most iconic press images - the Pulitzer prize winning photograph <a href="http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/">The vulture and the little girl</a> taken during the Sudanese famine - and the personal toll of witnessing human violence and suffering. </p>
<p>We leave and quickly follow up this intense encounter with a closing visit of Daniel Boyd’s Hello Darkness. Presented in another warehouse setting, Boyd’s work consists of a light installation and series of video projections. Dots are the connecting feature. The four video works, presented in pairs, are composed of black screens with transparent circles that simultaneously reveal and obscure underlying images. </p>
<p>I recall seeing Daniel Boyd’s Darker Shade of Dark as part of the 2012 Asia Pacific Triennial at The Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. At that time, I was captivated by his work, which, presented in darkness on crisp screens, created connections to constellations, stars, the passing of time and connected histories. In this instance, however, ambient light diffuses the image intensity and audience members position themselves between the projectors and the screen, dancing and allowing their bodies to be momentarily enveloped by dots. </p>
<p>While this configuration certainly enables a more playful experience of Boyd’s work, it changes from a more contemplative and profound reflection on interconnection and Aboriginal understandings of cosmology to a mere entertaining spectacle. A asks if she can play in front of the projector. Recalling the profundity of the earlier encounter, and conscious of the other people viewing the work, we encourage her to watch instead.</p>
<p>As it nears 7pm, the cold and crowd intensifies. It is time to go home. We still have a lot more to see: Death Masks, Winter Feast and Outposts, just to name a few. However, even these early experiences illustrate that while not all encounters are suitable for a small child, Dark Mofo is not just a festival for adults and late-night partygoers interested in the weird underbelly of contemporary art. </p>
<p>It is a family, and extended family affair, in which even sombre themes like Silence are an invitation to engage with a variety of viewpoints drawing attention to the value of connection, curiosity, mindfulness and reflection. Even the child-averse can find great joy in the company of a three-year-old, especially when the child highlights the wonder of intuitively experiencing art.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.darkmofo.net.au/">Dark Mofo </a> runs until June 21 in Hobart.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Svenja J. Kratz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hobart’s Dark Mofo deals with plenty of challenging subjects but seeing it with a child can highlight the wonder of intuitively experiencing art.Svenja J. Kratz, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Creative Practice, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793292017-06-13T20:21:07Z2017-06-13T20:21:07ZThe compulsion to create: ‘outsider art’ at MONA’s The Museum of Everything<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173500/original/file-20170613-32034-10dglu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled (all), Hans-Jörg Georgi, 2010–15, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moorilla Gallery, Courtesy of Atelier Goldstein and The Museum of Everything (installation by Lutz Pillong)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who is an artist and when does a fabricated object become art? The 200 individuals represented in <a href="http://www.musevery.com/#about">The Museum of Everything exhibition</a> at MONA in Hobart focus our attention on these questions. On the website they are described as “untrained, unintentional, undiscovered and unclassifiable artists of modern times”. <a href="https://mona.net.au/museum/exhibitions/the-museum-of-everything/artists">They are</a> hermits, governesses, housewives, former miners, taxidermists and ex-soldiers, working in painting, sculpture, and an extraordinary range of other media.</p>
<p>While these people may “unintentionally” be making something we might want to describe as art, they are the most focused, driven and compulsive group of makers we are ever likely to encounter, and there is nothing that is unintended in the things they fabricate. Indeed they make these images and objects because they must depict in some form what is most important to them in their lives.</p>
<p>After an exhilarating journey through 30 rooms and many corridors of remarkable images and objects, these questions about the nature of art and the credentials of artists reach a critical mass. Finally, you arrive in a backyard courtyard, entered through a fly-wire screen door. Painted on the wall is a call-out for more people who might be included in some future exhibition. It asks, are you a self-taught or secret artist? Is your home your own personal gallery? Have you invented a private language? If so contact <a href="http://musevery.com.au/">The Museum of Everything</a>.</p>
<p>This last advertisement alerts us to the real conundrum of encountering so many unique individuals and creative practices, who likely never expected us to engage with the things they have made. If they are secret artists, who have developed a private language and wish to keep their activities to themselves, what are we doing prying into their work and their lives? </p>
<p>Can we even call what they make “art”, in the way we conventionally define it, if there is no intention to communicate with an audience?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173503/original/file-20170613-10249-sdtb7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Untitled (all), Bogdan Zietek, 1970–2010, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moorilla Gallery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Outsiders, or just artists?</h2>
<p>Other writers have struggled to explain the remarkable work produced by men and women for whom the act of creation is fundamental to their existence. After the second world war, the French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the label <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/art-brut">art brut</a>, or raw art, to describe the amazing work he collected from individuals incarcerated in institutions or those that made art privately to fulfil a deep need. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, Roger Cardinal, a British academic, opted for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677583/">outsider art</a> as a more useful catch-all for artists working on the margins of the art world. Others have grouped the work of this army of practitioners under classifications such as naïve art, visionary art and folk art.</p>
<p>Whatever box we put them in, and none is entirely satisfactory, the artists whose works adorn the walls of MONA are clearly extraordinary. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173502/original/file-20170613-10208-11zlh8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Courtesy of The Museum of Everything.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moorilla Gallery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These objects have been removed from the homes, hospitals, and workshops where they were made. We are forced to make decisions about how to approach and read them and how to react after engaging with them. We must learn to lift the filters we normally have in place in an art gallery and really look hard at works that break rules, disrupt expectations and offer us insights into the lives of remarkable human beings.</p>
<h2>Creative lives</h2>
<p>Each of these artists has remade their world through a physical engagement with the tools of art, and because of that, we have a window into some extraordinary personal narratives. </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://officialhenrydarger.com/images/">Henry Darger</a> the hospital custodian from Chicago who returned home each evening to continue working on his manuscript, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”. He is represented in the exhibition by a series of consecutive panels of drawings illustrating his magnum opus, a sprawling and tender series of traced images woven together with pencil and watercolour.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173501/original/file-20170613-603-gle73a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Untitled (all), Alikhan Abdollahi, c. 2010, Paper mache.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moorilla Gallery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/index.php?c=e&level=3&sublevel=2">Adolf Wölfli</a> was disturbed and violent, living most of his life in the Waldau Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Bern. He drew compulsively and like Darger set out to create a massive literary work, in his case a rambling autobiography that saw his gradual elevation to the Sainthood as “St Adolf II”. His dense, complicated and intense drawings in pencil fill the page, leaving no space inactive.</p>
<p>In 2007, I had the opportunity to meet <a href="https://theconversation.com/stan-hopewell-an-artist-facing-the-stars-and-reaching-the-unknown-28852">Stan Hopewell</a>, who is represented in this exhibition by his masterwork “The Last Supper”. The task appeared so great, so necessary and so profound that to embark on it Stan required divine guidance. When his wife Joyce became ill, Stan made a pact with his God that he would continue to write and paint to celebrate God’s Love while Joyce remained alive. </p>
<p>Over the next five years, he filled his house with paintings, which he believed were made with the assistance of an “an unseen Angel” and wrote pages upon pages of a stream-of-consciousness manifesto about his life and his beliefs. The day Joyce died, Stan stopped writing and painting. His fantastical works incorporate the events of his life, his family, his abiding faith and current events. They were agglomerations that evolved, each addition adding to the complexity and the scale of the work, incorporating angels with flapping wings, illuminated with lights and adorned with his wife’s knickknacks.</p>
<h2>Ambition and obsession</h2>
<p>Darger, Wölfli, and Hopewell are only three of the human stories from the vast array that lie behind the over 2,000 objects hung throughout the temporary gallery space of MONA. Of course, they add a dimension to our reading of the work, but it is also true that the imagery is so powerful, so disruptive, so fresh and confronting that it commands our attention. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173526/original/file-20170613-10193-n966c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Untitled (all), Calvin and Ruby Black, 1955–1972, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What makes this work so arresting is the urgency of its making. These are images and objects that had to be made, that could no longer be repressed. Whether intended for others or created for solitary contemplation, they have an intensity that draws us deep into their fabricated worlds.</p>
<p>Obsessive detail is a common stylistic trait. Scale and ambition are others. Hans-Jörg Georgi’s amazing flight of aircraft, designed for escape from an uninhabitable planet, spiral through the gallery space in a torrent of energy. Their fuselages, carefully constructed from cardboard and tape, are maniacally compulsive, showing each detail of the engines and propellers, the wing mechanisms, passenger decks and windows. Both prophetic and wildly funny, this work, like so many others in the exhibition, requires a shift in consciousness to fully absorb its significance.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173497/original/file-20170613-603-eydcxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Untitled (all), Hans-Jörg Georgi, 2010–15, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moorilla Gallery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What better place to confront these works than in MONA, a space that has rethought the modern museum and helped us to re-imagine the experience of engaging with artworks? The works are set within rooms designed to create the sense of a slightly dilapidated home-museum: wallpapered, sporadically architraved, cluttered with objects and glass display cases.</p>
<p>It is James Brett, the founder of The Museum of Everything and curator of this show, whose guiding intelligence is everywhere present. Each room is themed. Carefully positioned works draw you through into the next room of wonders where new relationships and variations on old themes play out. </p>
<p>Like every passionate collection, the compulsion to overwhelm is never resisted, but strangely this leads to an insatiable appetite for more. This is most definitely an exhibition that both requires and demands multiple visits.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to those big questions: is it art, and should we be viewing it? Perhaps the best way to describe the individuals whose works fill the Museum of Everything is that they separately and as a group pose questions about the nature of art and challenge us to ponder what it means to be an artist. Significantly, through this process, they highlight the sense of our own humanity and showcase the qualities we ascribe to humanness. What could be more rewarding, inspiring and affirming?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Museum of Everything will showing at MONA until April 2 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell is affiliated with University of WA Publishing who published his book, Hopewell: Facing the Stars, (photography Frances Andrijich), published by University of Western Australia Publishing, Perth, in 2013, ISBN 978-1-74258-513-0
</span></em></p>MONA’s latest exhibition draws on the work of people - patients, housewives, hermits - who were compelled to create, raising age-old questions about how we define art.Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765042017-04-21T04:50:31Z2017-04-21T04:50:31ZDark Mofo’s slaughtered bull and the ethics of using animals in art<p>In a <a href="https://mona.net.au/media/354501/dark-mofo-hermann-nitsch-press-release-and-statement-about-the-work-2017.pdf">three-hour show</a> scheduled at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art in June, Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch plans to use the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/controversy-over-hermann-nitsch-dark-mofo-bloody-art-show/8452202?section=arts-culture">blood of a slaughtered bull</a> to explore ancient ritual and spiritual sacrifice. Nitsch is hoping to serve the meat of the animal to the audience at the Dark Mofo festival following the performance. </p>
<p>The plan has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/controversy-over-hermann-nitsch-dark-mofo-bloody-art-show/8452202?section=arts-culture">met with criticism</a> from animal rights activists, the RSPCA, and the broader community. But it is far from the first, or worst, use of animals for art and human satisfaction.</p>
<p>MONA founder David Walsh’s <a href="https://mona.net.au/blog/2017/04/rising-tide">defence of Nitsch’s work</a> in response to the controversy seems to be based on two ideas: the function of art is to raise challenging questions, and it’s legal for people to eat animals, suggesting hypocrisy in a willingness to eat them but reject their use in art. </p>
<p>Walsh is right, up to a point; but this “social role plus legality” defence has its limits. So how are we to navigate the ethical minefield of hurting or killing animals in the name of art? </p>
<h2>The (ab)uses of animals</h2>
<p>In his 2000 installation artwork, <a href="http://mbf.blogs.com/files/evaristti-helena.pdf">Helena, Chilean artist Marco Evarsitti</a> displayed 10 water-filled blenders, each containing a live goldfish, and invited visitors to push the on-button. And at least one visitor to Denmark’s Trapholt Art Museum pushed it.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166213/original/file-20170421-20071-1j07n8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marco Evaristti’s Helena.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/malouette/425224808">malouette/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2013, meanwhile, Nicaraguan artist Guillermo Vargas tethered a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/mar/30/art.spain">stray dog</a>, without food and water, to a gallery wall. Vargas was, apparently, making a point about the plight of homeless people.</p>
<p>There is, importantly, a big difference between Evarsitti and Vargas’s works, and Nitsch’s. No animals will suffer in his show, which is called 150.Action, because we are assured the bull - which is earmarked for slaughter regardless - will be killed in accordance with humane Australian standards.</p>
<h2>For art’s sake?</h2>
<p>Whether it is a question of economics, gustatory gratification, or artistic impulse, using animals for human purposes requires making value judgements about the importance of their lives and well-being.</p>
<p>And however we dress it up, when we do things to animals that we wouldn’t do to human beings, we act in step with a hierarchical order of value first laid down in ancient Greece and taken up by the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/animals_1.shtml">Abrahamic religious traditions</a>.</p>
<p>It is true that Nitsch’s work draws attention to that tradition, but as Walsh has pointed out, Nitsch has been at it since the 1960s. Isn’t it about time that artists made their point about human domination without themselves asserting dominance over animals?</p>
<p>The problem with Nitsch’s work is an implicit value judgement: animals are an appropriate source for artistic materials. It is the presumption of human superiority behind such a judgement which has elicited the outrage of the animal protection community.</p>
<h2>A question of values</h2>
<p>The RSPCA <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/apr/19/bloody-dark-mofo-artwork-using-slaughtered-bull-crosses-the-line-rspca-says">responded</a> to Nitsch’s work by claiming it “fails to respect” animals. Failing to respect animals means treating them like objects or playthings to be manipulated for our purposes. Respecting them requires treating them in a way that acknowledges that they have a kind of value that is independent of their usefulness to humans.</p>
<p>As philosophers such as Peter Singer and <a href="http://tomregan.info/">Tom Regan</a> have pointed out, as rule of thumb we respect animals when we leave them be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166211/original/file-20170421-20057-epg0z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An alternative to animal art? Body parts made from felt in work by Dutch artist Marjolein Dallinga in Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Hadley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Walsh is right to decry the hypocrisy of people who express outrage at Nitsch’s work yet continue to support the suffering and death of animals through their dietary choices.</p>
<p>Still, without expecting Nitsch and Walsh to be moral saints, I’d argue they have not drawn the line in a moral way. Yes, it might be legal to do what Nitsch is doing, and yes, people around the world eat animals, but legality does not equal morality. </p>
<p>One wonders what kind of performance art would’ve been acceptable in Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa or antebellum United States if we are supposed to read morality only from the laws of the land at a particular historical moment.</p>
<p>From an animal protection perspective, it is dispiriting when the choices of the supposedly edgy elements of artistic community fall in lock-step behind the mainstream society, which values animal lives as less than human. Far better to direct one’s creative energies producing works that don’t use animal blood as paint. </p>
<p>While Nitsch does not use a live animal, the concern is that 150.Action gives comfort to people who do because it reinforces a view of animals as ours to use.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Hadley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a history of mistreatment of animals in the name of art. But isn’t it about time artists made their point about human domination without themselves asserting dominance over beasts?John Hadley, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/608522016-06-14T03:05:07Z2016-06-14T03:05:07ZDark Mofo and the affective power of a creative storm<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126441/original/image-20160614-18068-haityg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Visitors take in Cameron Robbins' Field Lines at the Museum of Old and New Art.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Remi Chauvin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the week leading up to Hobart’s Dark Mofo winter festival, I picture myself exploring events in a layered pupae of thermals, scarf, coat and gloves, still shivering, but awed by a spectacle of fire, light and unimaginable, dark, sensory wonder. </p>
<p>As a result, my start to the festival – a trip to Willow Court (a former mental institution) at New Norfolk to see Mike Parr’s Asylum and Entry by Mirror Only with a friend – is punctuated by a series of disappointments. It’s not cold enough; I barely need gloves. The MONA ferry is cancelled, due to debris from the torrential rain a week before, and the replacement bus smells slightly musty – like dank carpet. This would be somewhat in the spirit of Dark Mofo if the bus fabric was black and not a hideous swirl of primary colours, complete with bright blue window curtains. We laugh. We don’t feel “dark”. </p>
<p>When we arrive on site, we stand near some fire pits and receive instructions. We are confused, but follow the crowd. Strange pale faces peer from some of the windows in the building above. Linger. And are gone. </p>
<p>Eventually, we break away and start exploring the site. We stand at an entrance to one of the buildings, the threshold marked by a the intense scent of possum urine and faeces. The abandoned interior is decrepit and damp. A few small mirrors sit on narrow ledges and in odd corners. We see videos of Parr’s intense body mutilation and endurance performances through windows and projected onto walls. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126432/original/image-20160614-29229-1g5kmut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mike Parr, Aslyum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Rémi Chauvin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another building, there is a sea of pale green broken glass. We move on – a possum runs, terrified, through an empty hallway framed by the heavy doors to the old patient cells. There’s a sense of unease, but it’s somehow all too familiar, almost expected. Indeed, the experience reminds me of Parr’s work installed at Cockatoo Island for the 2008 Sydney Biennale. At the time, it was a standout, resonating with me for days after the encounter. This time, the similarity almost bores me.</p>
<p>More buildings, more rooms. The smell of human and animal waste seems ever present. As we walk, I become increasingly captivated by different arrangements, from piles of archived objects to a more formal display of one of Parr’s prints.
They conjure feelings of desperation and a struggle for control. There are various colourful plastic hand held mirrors, which conjure a nostalgia to childhood, loss of innocence and the traumas of youth. There are vintage bathroom mirrors, broken car mirrors, travel and vanity mirrors and an abundance of shards. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mike Parr, Aslyum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Rémi Chauvin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These mirrors register visitors in the present, but they are also conduits to another time, standing in for the people that once occupied this space: the damaged and discarded. –The space feels increasingly haunted through these objects that amplify the surrounds, capturing glimpses of feet and bodies. It is the sound of vomit accompanying one of Parr’s video works that breaks through my final resistance. I am overcome with the involuntary sensations of disgust, horror, sadness, grief and profound compassion for the voiceless and forgotten patients at Willow Court. </p>
<p>We complete our encounter with Parr’s 72 hour endurance performance Entry by Mirror Only. A single room is well lit and inside we see Parr seated at a table, drawing. His hand moves gracefully, repetitively across the page. The rest of his body is still, even his eyes seem to remain motionless. In the cell there is a mattress with a neatly folded blanket. A crowd stand around watching him. </p>
<p>Dressed in striped pyjamas, drawing fixedly, he becomes the patient. Further within the building, a large room is lit to reveal a series of disturbing self-portraits composed of heavy black lines. The image of Parr, as patient, is complete and the performance, becomes a moving homage to the artist’s late brother who suffered from mental health issues for much of his life. I am moved, I feel the complexity of this site within me. We leave, my early disappointments forgotten, looking forward to the next Dark Mofo encounter.</p>
<h2>Storms and Shakespeare</h2>
<p>The following evening, another friend in tow, we visit Tempest at The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The show, curated by Juliana Engberg, references violent storms and the Shakespearean play of the same name. This time, I am open and no longer mapping disappointments. </p>
<p>As we move into the exhibition, I start to note how expertly the journey has been crafted. The collections of artwork, objects and natural history specimens create a rich narrative linked to the perils and wonder of discovery and the story of The Tempest. We are about to set sail and the start to the journey is marked by Tacida Dean’s video How to Put a Boat in a Bottle. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126447/original/image-20160614-17209-1ven6cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ship Model, 1800s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the next room, a central table displays an abundance of intricate model boats. Many are composed of the familiar wood, thread and fabric. However, others are more magical and strange, composed of shell and bone. In the rear projection space, Fiona Tan’s Nellie depicts a young girl dressed in 17th century garb. The print of the wallpaper and her dress are the same – white and blue, reminiscent of Delft Blue china, but composed of tropical imagery including exotic birds, monkeys and palms. </p>
<p>She sits alone in a large house and the matching patterns make her body, at times, disappear into the walls. While Tan’s work originally referenced the story of Corneila van Rijn (Rembrandt’s illegitimate daughter) and Tan’s own experience of displacement from Indonesia to Amsterdam, in the context of the show, the connections are extended and link to the character Miranda in The Tempest: a young girl, controlled and trapped on an island between two worlds.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fiona Tan, A Lapse of Memory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy the artist and Frith St Gallery, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the still ships in harbour, we move into the storm. David Stephenson’s Star Drawings conjure connections to navigation and destiny while on the opposite wall, a massive drawing of lightning, by Tacida Dean – When First I Raised the Tempest, No.17599 – extends the full length of the gallery. A series of paintings of ships, a love letter and a room-size painting of Prospero’s Island extend the narrative. </p>
<p>The exhibition creates a space that speaks about much more than the story of The Tempest. It explores issues of power and colonialism and the relationship between humans and the natural world.</p>
<p>Indeed, this exhibition, like Mike Parr’s installation and performance, must be experienced. Through the richness of the curatorial layering, it invites each viewer to draw on their own unique background and experiences to inform the overall reading. This is a show that requires time, and should ideally be experienced twice. </p>
<h2>The flow of the wind</h2>
<p>By Saturday, I feel a little overwhelmed, but we are determined to see the opening of Cameron Robbins and Ryoji Ikeda’s work at MONA. On entry to Cameron Robbins’ Field Lines (main image), we are confronted by an impressive sculptural machine, tall and skeletal with odd horizontal funnels. It reminds me of Jean Tinguely’s kinetic drawing sculptures, but the context is yet to emerge.</p>
<p>In the next room, I see a series of long exposure photographs capturing the movement of light in bright red-orange bleeding lines, and I begin to make the connection between these images and the strange machine. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126425/original/image-20160614-17209-ljgvrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cameron Robbins, Field Lines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Rémi Chauvin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My initial instinct to link Robbins’ machines to the work of Tinguley was indeed appropriate. His sculptures are not simply strange aesthetic objects, but carefully crafted and honed to capture the immaterial flows and subtle invisible forces around us. Indeed, the light drawings create shapes that speak of the flow of the wind. </p>
<p>In the rooms that follow, this dialogue is extended through the presentation of many more machines and the intricate drawings, patterns and movement created by wind, tide, energy and magnetic force. While the images and machines are spectacular, it is the subtlety of each individual line and impeccable balance presented in the construction of the sculptures that ultimately draws me in.</p>
<p>The work is not simply about visualising wind or the in-out flow of tides. No. This work is about revealing some of the scientific magic that exists all around us, the complexity of interconnection between systems, chaos and order. It provides a glimpse at an understanding that extends beyond words, and must simply be felt as an immaterial, almost spiritual force. </p>
<p>While the bulk of the exhibition consists of various sculpture-machines and drawings, the experience is complemented by the addition of video and a large installation. It creates a range of sensory engagements that further the connections and speak of the value of curiosity, observation and exploration. </p>
<h2>Entering the control centre of the universe</h2>
<p>The work of Robbins is superbly complemented by a visit to Ryoji Ikeda’s Supersymmetry. At the entrance, we are told that there will be darkness and strobe effects. This announcement creates expectations that are then immediately exceeded. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ryoji Ikeda’s Supersymmetry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Rémi Chauvin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ryoji’s work is spectacular. Conceived while on residency at the Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva, a research centre renowned for experimental particle physics, Supersymmetry immediately creates links to the movement of particles. </p>
<p>The space is black, lit initially by the light emitted from three low, square structures containing a glowing white screen. Ball bearings move in patterns across the intensely lit surface. They form pooling and flocking patterns as they travel. A low whirring sound accompanies their movement. Incredibly, the smooth, glowing surface appears immobile. After a few minutes, what seems like a scanning layer appears and moves across the surface of the structure. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ryoji Ikeda, Supersymmetry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mona/Rémi Chauvin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first appears to record the location of the ball bearings, the second seems to map time, while the third records arrangements. The use of strobe effects enhances the sense of scanning. At one point, all movement ceases and the bearings form different shapes near the centre of the screen. While the full function and details remain unclear, there is a definite sense of rigid and precise data collection. The matched timing of each structure is impeccable. </p>
<p>The second component of the installation only enhances the experience. A long row of projections and screens appears to be gathering real-time data from the three “experiment” structures. We see the ball bearings move, then images of clusters of particles, like an expanding universe – I get associations of cosmic forces, light speed, time travel and intricate connections between matter and the invisible forces that control it’s movement and trajectory.</p>
<p>I feel like I have entered into the control centre of the universe. </p>
<p>As though there is no god, just a series of computers, mapping and controlling the fate of every particle, creating patterns and systems that appear open, but follow distinct rules.</p>
<p>I stand for a while and try to take it all in. After watching the spectacle cycle through, I decide, this space is perhaps not the control centre, but an obsessive, never ending experiment to find this elusive space and finally understand the meaning of life and nature of the universe. </p>
<p>As I stand there, I realise that I cannot do this work justice. In the curatorial notes, the work is described as “a total visual and aural immersion into nature’s innermost reality”. A big call, that one. But, you know, I have to agree. This is not to be missed. </p>
<p>After just a few days of engaging with some of the headlining artworks at this year’s Dark MOFO, I understand that this festival is not about darkness or horror.</p>
<p>Rather, it is about engaging in new experiences that capitalise on the power of art to expand horizons and take us into new worlds of understanding and possibility.</p>
<p>While some work, like Mike Parr’s haunting Asylum, will require the viewer confront the darker terrains of human experience and the troubling institutional policies of the past (and present), the curatorial teams have delivered an astounding and deeply affecting program that moves seamlessly between science, spirituality and magic and captures the beauty and danger of a raging storm. </p>
<p>The only thing I can say for sure, is that Dark Mofo is best experienced in person and, preferably, without the baggage of expectation.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Tempest is at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery until November 20.</em></p>
<p><em>Cameron Robbins’ Field Lines is at MONA until August 29.</em></p>
<p><em>Supersymmetry is part of MONA’s permanent, evolving collection and will be on display for at least 12 months. https://darkmofo.net.au/lineup/supersymmetry-ryoji-ikeda/</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Svenja J. Kratz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hobart’s winter festival explores darkness, storms and the very nature of the universe, with artwork performed in an asylum; echoing the elements and conceived while on a residency at Geneva’s Centre for Nuclear Research.Svenja J. Kratz, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Creative Practice, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/434552015-06-18T04:53:47Z2015-06-18T04:53:47ZAntony and the Johnsons at Dark Mofo: uplifting, sombre, beautiful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85446/original/image-20150617-23232-723nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Antony and the Johnsons fit perfectly within the world of Dark Mofo. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/">Images courtesy of Dark Mofo </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dark Mofo has gained <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-dark-gets-in-why-dark-mofo-lightens-a-crowded-calendar-40080">a reputation</a> in its first three years for curating and programming exciting and provocative international and local art, performance and events and unapologetically placing them in the middle of the cold, wet and dark Tasmanian winter. </p>
<p>Transgender multidisciplinary artist, songwriter and performer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/arts/music/a-musical-manchild-surrounded-by-friends-explores-his-sadness.html">Antony Hegarty</a> – as part of <a href="http://www.antonyandthejohnsons.com/">Antony and the Johnsons</a> – fits perfectly within this world. The band played last night in the second of two headline gigs at this year’s event. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85443/original/image-20150617-23226-y67keq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/">Images courtesy of Dark Mofo</a></span>
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<p>Since the late 1990s, the band been at the <a href="http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/antony-sees-the-light/?_r=0">forefront</a> of the art music and performance scene in New York and the UK, with work that blurs the boundaries between performance art and commercial music. The breakthrough album <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Antony-And-The-Johnsons-I-Am-A-Bird-Now/master/3569">I am a Bird Now</a> (2005) brought international success and, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/sep/07/mercuryprize2005.mercuryprize">controversially</a>, won the UK’s Mercury Prize that year. </p>
<p>Antony Hegarty has successfully used her notoriety to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lady-bunny/lady-bunny-interviews-ant_b_6366852.html">publicly address</a> issues close to her, including transgender politics, ecological consciousness and indigenous spirituality. </p>
<p>The Odeon Theatre in Hobart, it transpired, was a perfect venue to experience the evocative and haunting vocals of Antony in collaboration with the <a href="https://www.tso.com.au/">Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra</a> – it was intimate enough to allow for a genuine sense of connectedness with the performers on stage. </p>
<p>The orchestra was dressed all in white. The performance started with a ghostly figure draped in white tulle resembling an androgynous angel of death (<a href="http://thefusionmag.com/johanna-constantine-living-poetry-from-death-itself/">Johanna Constantine</a>) emerging from the wings and performing a short <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/01/magazine/butoh-dance-of-darkness.html">butoh</a>-inspired dance in a single spotlight. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85444/original/image-20150617-23256-8jw08v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/">Images courtesy of Dark Mofo</a></span>
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<p>Antony, when she appeared, remained within this restricted, spotlit area of stage – moving only occasionally, bathed in pools of bold colour which did not light her face, creating an otherworldliness to her performance. </p>
<p>It was mesmerising from beginning to end. </p>
<p>The fragility and vulnerability of Antony’s unique voice is obvious on recordings but even more so live. A cover of Beyonce’s Crazy in Love (2003) became a hauntingly beautiful and melancholic torchsong, with Antony looking like some sort of apparition, bathed in toxic green light, communicating a depth of emotion we rarely associate with pop music. </p>
<p>A projected backdrop of the 1970s experimental, avant-garde art film <a href="http://secretlycanadian.com/blog/tag/mr-os-book-of-the-dead/">Mr O’s The Book of the Dead</a> (1973) by Japanese artist and filmmaker <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3790917/">Chiaki Nagano</a> accompanied the performance. The film features legendary butoh performer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/arts/dance/02ohno.html">Kazuo Ohno</a> (1906-2010) alongside a collection of other whitefaced performers. </p>
<p>The inclusion of this cinematic element created a strange, often discordant connection with the music performance, which, while often jarring, sometimes created a strange synchronicity. I am unsure as to whether this was coincidental or expertly timed – but they appeared to coexist happily as an unlikely pair.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/">Images courtesy of Dark Mofo</a></span>
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<p>Antony did not speak a word before or after any of her songs but occasionally dropped to her knees on stage, or gestured to the sky. After transfixing the audience for well over an hour with an exquisite repertoire of songs from the last 15 years she left the stage following a much deserved standing ovation. </p>
<p>She returned shortly after and sat herself at the piano. It was here that she, for the first time in the evening, spoke to the audience. </p>
<p>She <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/17/antony-hegarty-condemns-genocide-of-indigenous-peoples-in-australia-and-us">acknowledged</a> the significance of performing in Tasmania, given its history of indigenous genocide and told a profoundly moving story of how she had spent time with a group of elder women in the <a href="http://www.wangkamaya.org.au/pilbara-languages/martu-wangka-overview">Martu Aboriginal</a> community at <a href="http://svaconsultingquarterly.com/2015/03/09/engaging-with-indigenous-communities/">Parnngur</a>, Western Australia, in 2013. </p>
<p>Antony has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/antony-and-the-johnsons-to-donate-funds-from-dark-mofo-gigs-to-aboriginal-community-20150611-ghlpvm.html">promised the profits</a> from the Australian shows would be donated to help this community fight multinational corporations intent on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-24/uranium-mine-kintyre-given-federal-approval-cameco-says/6418974">mining uranium</a> on their sacred land in the Pilbara. </p>
<p>The audience seemed genuinely moved and appreciative of her passion to use what influence she may have as an artist to challenge the complacency and apathy of society. </p>
<p>In the foyer afterwards, I heard someone telling her friend that the band’s music was like the soundtrack to every break-up and breakdown she had ever had. </p>
<p>Moving, sombre, uplifting, dark and beautiful – I can’t think of a better way to spend a cold, wet Hobart winter evening. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Antony and the Johnsons + The TSO was presented as part of Dark Mofo on June 16 and 17. Details <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/program/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Coyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Transgender artist Antony Hegarty has successfully used her notoriety to publicly address issues close to her, including transgender politics, ecological consciousness and indigenous spirituality.Sean Coyle, PhD Candidate in Queer Performance , University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400802015-06-03T04:27:17Z2015-06-03T04:27:17ZWhere the dark gets in: why Dark Mofo lightens a crowded calendar<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83767/original/image-20150603-22081-1xzllyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">So cold it's hot ... The Winter Feast crowd fan the flames at Dark MOFO 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MONA/Rémi Chauvin Image Courtesy MONA Museum of Old and New Art,</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For more than a quarter of a century, South Australia proclaimed itself the “Festival State”. The Adelaide Festival of Arts and the Adelaide Writers’ Week both have strong pedigrees, and have set the bar for similar festivals around Australia. It appears that Tasmania is now taking its turn, with the increasingly popular <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">Dark Mofo</a>, kicking off on June 12. </p>
<p>Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin are all home to annual arts festivals, while Tasmania has its biannual Tasmanian International Arts Festival (Ten Days on the Island rebranded), Australia’s only state-wide international arts festival. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83328/original/image-20150529-12375-2b9xvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Antony and the Johnsons will headline Dark Mofo 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/16376693883/in/album-72157651505029051/">Image courtesy of the artist and Dark Mofo 2015</a></span>
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<p>All the major capital cities now host annual writers’ festivals, with food, film and music festivals also flooding our calendars. The “Festival State” moniker is redundant; Australia is now the “Festival Country”.</p>
<p>With audiences already sated, a new festival has to serve something special if it’s going to attract an audience. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If it’s good, people will come back for another helping.</p>
<p>In Hobart, people are already virtually queuing for their third helping of art collector and Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) owner <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/february/1366597433/richard-flanagan/gambler">David Walsh’s</a> Dark Mofo, which coincides with the opening of MONA’s latest major exhibition, <a href="http://darkmofo.net.au/program/marina-abramovic/private-archaeology-opening/">Marina Abramovic’s Private Archaeology</a>. </p>
<p>Pre-sale tickets for two concerts featuring Antony and the Johnsons with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra sold out in just three hours. That’s a big change for Hobart. Likewise, pre-sale tickets for the five-night Winter Feast of food, fire and music were quickly snapped up, and several other events have already sold out. </p>
<p>The wintry sibling of MONA’s highly successful <a href="https://www.mona.net.au/what%27s-on/festivals">Mofo summer festival</a> of music and art curated by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/29/brian-ritchie-violent-femmes-never-really-cared-about-being-famous">Brian Ritchie</a>, Dark Mofo, curated by <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/wish/leigh-carmichael-creative-director-dark-mofo-arts-festival-hobart/story-e6frg8io-1226658732666">Leigh Carmichael</a>, has clearly struck a chord with Tasmanians, and increasingly with others.</p>
<h2>Breathing life into the darker places</h2>
<p>Over 11 days, from June 12 to the winter solstice climax on June 22, audiences will have the opportunity to see artists from around the world bringing some unlikely venues to life. </p>
<p>The biggest international acts include Antony and the Johnsons, American rock spiritualist King Dude, the American doom metal outfit Pallbearer, and the British indie art-pop collective The Irrepressibles, who will be performing at the historic Odeon Theatre. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83329/original/image-20150529-12349-jqcb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/17083469555/in/album-72157651505029051/">Rémi Chauvin/ Image courtesy of Dark Mofo 2015</a></span>
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<p>Dark Mofo has each year enticed festival-goers into little-known venues and rarely visited parts of the city, and it again looks set to attract people in their thousands away from their cosy hearths and out into the wintry nights.</p>
<p>In St David’s Cathedral there is a midnight performance by Belgian cellist, composer, and singer Helen Gillet. The Rabble theatre company will offer a cosmic, theatrical take on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando at the Theatre Royal. </p>
<p>And the old Mercury building will be taken over by Patricia Piccinini and Peter Hennessey’s The Shadows Coming. </p>
<h2>The allure of the disturbing</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83332/original/image-20150529-12363-3g0qpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Anthony McCall installation, Five Minutes of Pure Sculpture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/16809100928/in/album-72157651505029051/">Image courtesy of the artist and Dark Mofo 2015</a></span>
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<p>Dark Mofo Films includes the world premiere of Foxtel’s <a href="http://darkmofo.net.au/program/the-kettering-incident/">The Kettering Incident</a>, shot entirely in Tasmania, alongside a line-up of Nordic darkness and two films by British director Ben Wheatley. </p>
<p>This year the usually inaccessible Macquarie Point harbour-front site will be unlocked and opened up to the public. The vast, industrial precinct, dubbed the Dark Park, is likely to be an attraction in itself. </p>
<p>But it will be brought to eerie life by two installations by the avant-garde artist Anthony McCall, the light show Solid Light Works, and the fire performance Landscape for Fire, and by Fire Organ, a massive structure created by Dutch chemo-acoustic engineer and sound artist Bastiaan Maris.</p>
<p>Nightly for 10 nights McCall’s Night Ship will sail up the Derwent River from Tinderbox to the city harbour, at regular intervals directing its powerful searchlight onto the shore. You will see it coming, and you will hear it coming.</p>
<p>The success of Dark Mofo is partly down to the way it pushes boundaries and offers people new experiences every year. It’s due in no small part to the brilliant vision of its Creative Director, Leigh Carmichael, supported, of course, by David Walsh, and both the State government and the Hobart City Council.</p>
<p>It is also due to its setting.</p>
<h2>The gothic state</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83330/original/image-20150529-12363-1hde9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Marina Abramović.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/16516075095/in/album-72157651505029051/">Image courtesy of Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart</a></span>
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<p>Hobart is Australia’s darkest capital city. Dark Mofo tunes in to the dark aesthetic borne of the state’s isolated geography and troubled colonial past. </p>
<p>It embraces the Tasmanian gothic that permeates the creative industries and is the cornerstone of our tourism industry — from Roger Scholes’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/48474/The-Tale-of-Ruby-Rose/overview">The Tale of Ruby Rose</a>, to – of course – David Walsh’s MONA, to the <a href="http://www.femalefactory.org.au/">Female Factories</a> that bear witness to the horrors of our convict history. </p>
<p>Winter festivals are thick on the ground. Dark Mofo works where others are less successful not only because it adopts this aesthetic of darkness, but because of the way Hobart, the place and the people, adopts the event. </p>
<p>It’s not just that Leigh Carmichael has made great use of some unusual locations, but because the distance between them is never too great, and with so many people moving around the waterfront, the party atmosphere encompasses the whole area transforming it into one big de-facto art space. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83331/original/image-20150529-12331-z149ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mid Winter Fest runs as part of Dark Mofo in the Huon Valley, Tasmania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/67221831@N08/16810009059/in/album-72157651505029051/">Image courtesy of the Huon Valley Mid Winter Fest and Dark Mofo 2015</a></span>
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<p>This isn’t true of similar events in larger capital cities here or elsewhere. My experience of Paris’s celebrated all-night arts festival, <a href="http://www.timeout.com/paris/en/nuit-blanche">Nuit Blanche</a>, last October was that the festival fever fizzled during the lengthy treks between sets of curated installations.</p>
<p>The Nuit Blanche concept has been around for about three decades now, and it continues to gather pace. In 2013 Melbourne followed cities such as St Petersburg and Helsinki with a highly successful <a href="http://whitenightmelbourne.com.au/">White Night</a> event, which has run again both years since. And there are many other winter festivals around Australia.</p>
<p>By replacing the light with the dark, Carmichael and company have made Dark Mofo different. </p>
<p>As Leonard Cohen tells us, there is a crack in everything. In Hobart, that’s how the dark gets in, and it seems that’s what people want.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Dark Mofo runs from June 12 to 22. Details <a href="https://darkmofo.net.au/">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph Crane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’re not short on festivals in Australia, so new events need to make their presence felt. What’s the secret of Dark Mofo, which is about to enjoy its third outing?Ralph Crane, Professor and Head of English, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.