Honi would like to acknowledge that Dark Mofo occurred on the stolen land of the Muwinawa people. The Muwinawa people, the traditional custodians of Nipaluna, the area we now call Hobart, have no descendents due to the colonialist project of genocide. There is no surviving knowledge of their language, their custodianship, or their ways of living, due to the deliberate and violent extinction of the Aboriginal communities in Lutruwita/Tasmania.
Honi would also like to acknowledge the Palawa people, and all Tasmanian Aboriginal people who are the custodians of this land today. We acknowledge those who continue to resist the long-lasting effects of colonisation, those who build community and recover history and truth, especially through art.
We pay our respects to Elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
“This is like a big, weird Tassie Christmas.”
Armed with their thermals, their fears, and their journalistic vigour, Calum & Will flew down to Tassie for a four-day excursion to Dark Mofo 2025, the annual arts festival hosted by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Sprawled across Hobart, the festival took them through warehouses, abandoned banks, echoey car parks, empty churches, and MONA itself, as the assortment of deeply political and deeply silly artworks immersed them in a city delighted by Dark Mofo’s curiosities and wonder.
Below, they detail six of their highlights from the festival, experienced in a whimsy of unholy celebration and red lights, and in a cold winter made warmer by the promise of visceral bodily movement and communal experience.
Will – Dark Park
Whilst it’s a simple rhyme, Dark Park was a quintessential way to describe this corner of the Dark Mofo experience. One of two key sites for free engagement with the festival, Dark Park sprawled multiple warehouses and ports in a close-knit corner near the water of Hobart. Over three nights we traversed these buildings and experiences, and walked away with an array of light beams, screams, and burning effigies.
There was Sora, a light installation by art collective Nonotak, in which a smattering of evenly-spaced light beams spun in circles with slight differentials in speed. Laying on the cold floor of a large concrete warehouse, it was truly a masterclass in perspective. You could look straight up and witness a square of about nine poles, echoing with the ambient soundscape and sudden clicks that accompanied the on/off of the lights. Alternatively, you could bear witness to the entire room, and observe the synchronised patterns snake their way across the space. On either scale, it was a hypnotising delight.
A theme I’ll come back to quite a bit is that of relinquishment, this giving in of sorts to the manic and free energy of the festival. We placed our fears, sprawled onto squares of paper no bigger than napkins, inside the mermaid pouches to be burned alongside the ceremonial Ogoh-Ogoh. On Sunday night, we watched as the Indonesian-inspired incarnation of fear and noise marched across the Dark Park to pulsating live percussion, as the figure, an embodiment of the endangered Maugean Skate, was set ablaze in a spectacle of pyros and fireworks. Bye bye fears!
One could also give in to the inevitability of death with a go on the Coffin Ride. We took numbers like at a butcher, sat in an old wooden pew, and then, when called, walked alongside a friendly mortician/photographer who placed us in a coffin, took photos of us as if we were deceased, and then closed the coffin as they printed our photos for a fun little souvenir to mortify our parents. This was both a chance to ponder the existential mortality which constantly submerges our experience of the world, and to take a lovely little nap.
Or, for a more succinct experience of catharsis, we screamed. Nicholas Galanin’s Neon Anthem, installed on the walkway between the two marquee Dark Park buildings, asked observers to “Take a knee and scream until you can’t breathe”. I’d hoped the layman would pick up on the political undertones of the signage, which was purportedly a “New National Anthem”, as a form of enraged protest. Taking the knee during the anthem was a decisive parallel to the early Black Lives Matter protests by NFL players. Regardless of intention, however, there was extreme catharsis in joining the chorus of screams. It was a liberal letting go of the pain and anguish harboured in a body. I screamed until my throat was so hoarse and my breath was so ravaged that I physically collapsed on the ground, and Calum had to swoop me into his arms as I started to sob. It was the most liberating excision of oneself I have ever done.
Calum – Berlin Atonal: Nox Omnia I & III
It is hard to question the construct of melody in art. We start as children, banging sticks together with no conceptualisation of ‘good’ sound whatsoever, and then slowly develop the skill and appreciation of what music can do. As such, any attempt to question the role of melodic sound can quickly be taken as a mere performance of ‘bad sound’. Berlin Atonal: Nox Omnia centred itself in this space. A curated selection of sound based performance artists from German Festival Berlin Atonal in three acts, this series of performances looked to push the boundaries of music and sound, to change perceptions, and to explore new avenues of noise.
Image courtesy of the artist and Dark Mofo
Perhaps the group that best exemplified this was Marginal Consort. Since 1997, performance artists Kazuo Imai, Kei Shii, Masami Tada, and Tomonao Koshikawa have met once a year to perform a unique three-hour long concert. Each artist fills a corner of the performance space with a series of objects of their choosing. They do not meet to discuss what they will bring each year, or what they will play. They have no plan, no structure, no prior intent.
This year they performed in Hobart for Berlin Atonal: Nox Omnia III. As I sat meditating in the space, each began to develop their own audio language. I could hear each artist as the sound of oscilloscopes, pipes, groans, and springs bounded around the hall. I could hear the four competing with each other, the waves of noise, each one battling to dominate the sound of the theatre. Sometimes two would align and create something close to a harmony, before another would interject with a new noise which would splinter the sound once more.
Over the course of three hours I sat, laid down, walked around, meditated, and experienced the sound from all angles of the hall. It was a mesmeric and beautiful performance which asked me to reconsider how I viewed music and sound as a whole. Though a portion of the audience had left at the show’s conclusion, more had stayed, diligently partaking in this state of rapture. It was moving and unexpectedly delightful.
Will – To Silent Earth, I Flow
I relinquish myself to the water.
It is this mantra that guided my experience of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s showcase at the festival. Helmed by London Symphony Orchestra conductor Robert Ames, the program of six pieces was heavily inspired by the ebb and flow and soundscape of the water. I’m not an explicitly spiritual person, but from the moment the symphony’s first piece Become Water began to soar through the grand Federation Concert Hall, I felt myself become one with the sound. I heard that mantra repeat in my head, as if fed into my mind by the music. I relinquish myself to the water. I relinquished, dear reader. I relinquished, as instructed, to the strings and brass and percussion pouring out of the instruments onstage.
The program was delivered with an extremely gentle yet incisive precision, and much like Tasmania’s character, it all felt like a humble gift to the audience. The music was a hug, an invitation to be present in my body, my vessel. The aquamarine warmth of gentle timpani, a pitter patter like slight rainfall, was delicately balanced against the wrath of the percussion, which swarmed the stage amongst the body of violins and trumpets and oboes.
As the final song played and the spotlights at the back of the orchestra slowly descended from the roof to the audience, they froze in our eyeline at the front of the balcony. Like Gatsby gripping tightly to the bannister as he watched that hopeful light, I felt the final embrace of the waterscape flood my soul. The conductor took his bow, the audience applauded, and I softly wept at how decidedly present and spiritually aligned I felt for those ninety minutes.
Will – Because the Knees Bend
A single man, adorned with a balaclava and outfitted in head-to-toe militant blacks, prowled down a constructed white corridor wielding a rubber baton. He walked, considered, froze, braced, then struck the wall, suddenly and brazenly. All we had to do was walk alongside him.
Brazilian artist Paul Setúbal’s work had a simple ask with a heavy connotation. Inspired by his experiences with police brutality in his youth, Setúbal forced us to sit with the violence in front of us. At no point did we feel as if we were in danger, but it was a vulnerable ask regardless.
“Walk with me.”
By the time we visited Because the Knees Bend, situated in the basement of an abandoned bank, it was the fourth and final day of the performance. The walls were worn through, circular gaps connecting to form long stretches of exposed wood. As we approached, I kneeled at one end of the corridor, and watched as people passing by considered when and how fast they’d pass through. I made eye contact with the vigilante. He looked drained, defeated even, between blows. He struck the wall perpetually. What other choice did he have?
It felt like I knew this person. It felt like I saw this person. It felt like this person, exhausted and existing in this cycle of violence as a sole emotional outlet, had no other way of living. Without the tools of processing, Setúbal’s masked figure roamed the corridor, trapped in his own methods of self-destruction. Eventually I walked beside him. I felt the weight of the isolation in the trapped walls. My heart raced as he passed by, baton in hand, and gave me a slight nod. Violence is a temperamental and cruel beast. It is also a reality.
How can we temper it unless we’re willing to walk beside it? How do we resist it unless we understand it?
Walk beside it. Live in it. Feel it all.
Calum – We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep
Dark Mofo provided little information about the artworks on display, intentionally so. The idea was that you engaged with the artwork on your own terms, not the terms of the artist. All that was written about Nathan Maynard’s piece We threw down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep was “A legacy of cultural theft and erasure laid bare on basement shelves.” As such, it was impossible to be prepared for what greeted us. Walking down a sparse concrete tunnel, an undeniable waft of rot and putrefaction hit our nostrils. Greeting us on entry, in flickering neon, were 480 sheep heads in jars, perfectly stacked on warehouse shelving. At regular intervals the overhead strip lights would turn off, then flash red, row after row, down the aisles. A grotesque omen of decay in a twisted mortuary. The layout was akin to a subterranean farm, growing death and rot under the centre of Hobart.
The embalming fluid which held the sheep heads in place had separated into layers, as blood slowly leaked out and collected into a pool of red mucus at the base of the glass. Looking into the face of the sheep, there was a calm innocence, a warped beauty in the purity of an animal that looked peacefully asleep. This was then brutally and sickeningly disrupted as we walked further in and saw the severed arteries and bones spotlit through the gaping hole in the back of their neck.
Though I am not religious, I found myself wanting to say a prayer to the universe in a desperate attempt to fix the atrocities that had occurred. But in a space of colonial genocide, there is no hollow comfort found in a Western God.
Maynard, a Trawlwoolway artist, sought to investigate the genocide and attempted erasure of the Indigenous Australians in Tasmania. Through his work, the sheep became a vessel, a totem for those who first worked the land thousands of years ago. Through such a connection, Maynard highlighted how First Nations Australians were treated as farm animals, slaves to a colonial regime, worked to death and murdered as the invaders pleased. Finding this hidden dumping ground in the heart of Hobart laid bare the ongoing effects of genocide. It mourned the loss of the Muwinawa people, and condemned those who murdered them. Maynard’s piece is a statement that, until repatriation occurs with the surviving Aboriginal Tasmanian peoples and these crimes are addressed, the very core of a Westernised Tasmania will continue to rot from the inside out.
Will – Winter Feast
Homeland. This is what the Winter Feast felt like. A nightly return.
To start every evening, Calum and I arrived early, flashed our press passes to bypass the general access line (a small but vital part of the experience), and walked, enamoured, through the assortment of native and multicultural food and drink delights. Externally, there was a strip of stalls back-to-back which offered a variety of meals and beverages, coated in drifting smoke from the assortment of fires (pits and pillars and grills alike). Internally, the food hall was a squashy gothic cathedral, where we worshipped at the altars of international cuisine and folksy live music.
Winter Feast was the purest distillation of the Dark Mofo aesthetic, with large red crosses hanging over X-shaped fire pits and ethereal purple lights shaped like livewires. Every night we feasted, we drank, we laughed and took photos, we relished in the Dionysian delights, and we felt, in this hubbub of families and DINKs and international art folk, like we were returned home. With warm bellies, buzzy brains, and full hearts, we took to the night and let Dark Mofo swallow us whole.
Hot Toddy Soit’s Unofficial Dark Mofo Hot Drink Ranking
Throughout our time at Dark Mofo we encountered many-a-hot alcoholic beverage. This was quite welcome given the Tassie cold, and we were impressed with how much variety there was of boozy hot drinks. Here, we share our unofficial ranking of the 16 hot alcoholic beverages we sampled throughout our time at Dark Mofo.
- Taylor & Smith Hot Honey Gin Toddy
Made with their signature honey gin, Taylor & Smith’s hot toddy, garnished with star anise and a cinnamon stick, struck to the core of what a Hot Toddy should be: elevated, warm for the soul, and good fucking tea.
- Ekka Nepalese Hot Spiced Chai Tea Punch
Aromatic, deeply intense, and creamy, Ekka’s authentic chair blend was incredibly well-balanced with its rum and spices, and as opposed to some of the warmer additions on this list, the drink was actually hot!
- Local Absinthe Mulled Absinthe
With a hearty and sweet flavour, Local Absinthe mixed their absinthe with mulled cider for a liquorice-scented sweet drink that had a lovely underbelly of blackcurrant.
- Utzinger Mulled Wine
Well-structured and packed with red fruit flavours like cherry, this mulled wine was not overly sweet and properly hot, to the point that it almost singed our nose hairs.
- Vilino Boozy Hot Chocolate
A rich dark ganache combined with a hit of liquor and shaken by a funky little robot, Villino’s sweet dessert was a perfect capstone to a delicious night out at the Winter Feast.
- Dark Mofo Hot Negroni
With the sweetness of a hot lemonade but the kick of hearty liquor, the Dark Mofo bars proliferating the Dark Park and other venues served this negroni with the whiff of burnt sugar and the promise of a solid drink wherever we wandered.
- Punch & Ladle Cherry Mulled Vermouth
This was decidedly solid, both in its sweet/bitter balance of cherry and vermouth, as well as in its light taste but solid structure. It was perhaps slightly sweet of centre, but sweet regardless.
- Hellfire Warm Mulled Sloe
The oomph of the initial strong flavour was quite potent and well-balanced, but Hellfire’s warm mulled sloe suffered from a fast-fading taste.
- Quiet Mutiny Mulled Wine
There’s only so many ways to describe mulled wine. This was good mulled wine. It felt like a nice night at home.
- Osare Boozy Hot Chocolate
Whilst vanilla vodka was an interesting and exciting choice for alcoholic addition, the Osare boozy hot chocolate felt like something we could’ve made ourselves, and not in an exciting way.
- Tasmanian Juice Press Hot Pina Colada
Fruity and creamy, the hot Pina Colada got big ups for its aesthetics and uniqueness, and a big ding for being the most expensive on this list by a fair few dollars.
- Dark Mofo Mulled Pinot Gris Hot Toddy
We simply wrote in our notes for this one “Tart mushy apples, stewed pear, quince? Pleasant aftertaste.” That feels apt.
- Small Island Salted Caramel and Apple Hot Toddy
An overly sweet drink, this hot toddy perhaps felt a little performative and too shiny, but the dried apple on top was a pleasant crispy addition.
- Dark Mofo Mulled Cider
This mulled cider was somehow hot in taste but warm in actual temperature. The paradox would be impressive if it wasn’t so unpleasantly tangy.
- Quiet Mutiny Hot Toddy
Whilst the Quiet Mutiny mulled wine was simplistic and earnest in execution, this was slightly too basic to be homely or classical.
- Bruny Island Cheese + Beer Co Hot Toddy
This tasted like cheese. Perhaps this was related to the (actually quite lovely) cheese fondue we had before drinking this hot toddy. Regardless, this was by far the lowest on the list. It did not taste like a hot toddy, and had no notes of sweetness, fruitiness, or emotional warmth. At least the cheese was nice!
