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.
The highpoint of Dark Mofo 2025’s fortnight of extravagant artistic debauchery presented itself in the form of Night Mass: God Complex. The event description is vague, cryptic, and just a little bit pompous. Eyerolling and adrenaline-inducing all at the same time, it felt like being invited to the most exclusive and underground party in town, along with a thousand of your soon-to-be closest mates.
“Temple of unrest, shrine to excess, pulpit for your sins: this is the house we’ve built for you. Unfolding in a new secret location—the world is your stage, until the curtains fall.”
As I entered the abandoned two-story warehouse (which, I would learn, used to be a Spotlight, then a Hillsong Church), there was a sense of crazed excitement in the air. The brakes were off, taboo was in, and insanity was the norm. Sobbing water-polo players performed a choreographed dance in a rave hall full of hanging screens and wires while UK singer Babymorocco did pull-ups in his underwear from a metal crossbeam in the next room over. Furries filled the upper stage of the main hall whilst a gimp gave lapdances on a barbershop chair in a side room. A punk band played a packed set in the executive offices whilst a puppet Pope screamed at passersby to “get it down ya” from a shot bar on the floor below. At one point, deciding the stairs were too boring, I took an indoor slide down into the mosh pit to get closer to the action.
Every site was occupied by something extravagant and arresting at all times. It was impossible to see everything, and that was the point: Night Mass is constructed around getting lost in a euphoric rush. You could go anywhere and see something amazing, drinking from one trough until you’ve had your fill and then moving to the next. It was a neverending paradise of heavenly delights, a bacchanal overflowing with desires of every kind.
There was something religious in the experience, lit by bonfires and red neon crosses as we collectively danced away the dead of winter until the sun arose. It was a release of inhibition, a collective howl to the moon, a celebration of life and the ecstasy of finding light and each other in the cold and the dark.
The religious underpinnings of Dark Mofo are, and always have been, very intentionally fostered by the team. The Winter Feast was stylised like a giant gothic cathedral; mammoth inverted neon red crosses lined Hobart’s foreshore; an abandoned church housed a giant statue of a pregnant goblin. Even the Night Mass itself did this, conjuring the spectre of an unholy night time worship.
Later, when I was describing this to a friend, they said to me “Dark Mofo is starting to sound a lot like a cult”. Reflecting on the crazed religious ecstasy I encountered over the week, I have to admit they have a point. Upon further reflection it occurred to me that this cult-like status is not unique to Night Mass, or even Dark Mofo. Rather, they are symbolic microcosms of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) as a whole: An art show-cum-clubhouse-cum-sex party-cum-fireside singalong-cum-cult. It’s a space where rules are eschewed and safe sterile enjoyment is replaced with chaos and controversy. Dark Mofo, and MONA generally is a pantomime circus headlined by ringleader David Walsh, a figure who, at least locally, has come to surpass the museum he owns in terms of mythical status.
David Walsh is synonymous with the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). If you ask a Taswegian how Dark Mofo came about, they will always start with the myth of David. He went to the University of Tasmania to study maths but spent all his time in the Hobart Casino until he was banned for being too good. Realising he had a talent, Walsh went international, ravaging the casinos of South Africa, where he was so successful he wasn’t legally allowed to bring all his cash back to Australia. To combat this, Walsh invested in art which he could legally transport across borders, and discovering he liked collecting, built a lovely storage shed a few kilometres from where he grew up to keep it all in. Thus, MONA was born. A middle-aged white gamblers art shed, now equipped with restaurants, live music, entertainment, a hot pink camo ferry, and several very expensive cabins to stay in.
How does Dark Mofo come about? According to the myth, David set up a summer music festival called MONA FOMA (Festival of Music and Art), then he thought ‘What if we did this in winter? And made it fucking nuts? And called it Dark Foma? No… Dark Mofo!’
How true are these stories? I’m unconvinced it matters.
Whatever the facts are, it is clear that MONA is a place full of controversy and contradiction. MONA mocks the art world for its pretension, whilst revelling in how clever it can be, rejecting the ideologies of major museums only to exhibit work from the biggest galleries in the world. It platforms progressive, conceptual, and politically relevant art — alongside piss-takes and dumb jokes. In David Walsh’s temple to sex and death, performativity reigns supreme, meaning is as infinitely deep or shallow as you want it to be.
This clear singular vision is refreshing in a national art-scene which is becoming increasingly muddled through government intervention and the strings attached to private funding. Earlier this year, Creative Australia, in a snap-decision, broke their own charter to remove Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative to the Venice Biennale in 2026, allegedly due to political pressure from the Liberal party. Around the same time, the Museum of Contemporary Art announced its decision to start charging ticket entry after more than 20 years due to progressively reduced government funding.
In this environment, it can feel increasingly difficult to platform political and challenging art, with the threat of bad reviews and low visitation numbers hanging like an axe over the heads of major institutions across the country. David Walsh has never cared about the establishment, or particularly about controversy. From playing in pigs’ blood to showcasing 480 decapitated sheep heads in jars, from a lounge just for ladies to an artwork that makes literal excrement, the gallery has thoroughly embraced the idiom ‘any publicity is good publicity’.
Because of this, MONA and Dark Mofo stand apart from any other art showcase in the country. Yet, these clear threads help to create one of the most engaging, challenging, and easily accessible visions of art. Capable of being summed up as ‘crazy goth christmas’, the vision of Dark Mofo is to be provocative, but also clear and accessible. From five-year-olds to 80-year-olds, the families that trekked across Hobart in the depths of winter to see the works on display knew what they were getting into. The festival provides a populist appeal that allows audiences from across the country to engage with the works, and allows an entry point for the uninitiated into contemplating how art can move them.
Ironically, the supposed ‘cult’ of David Walsh’s genius, as un-artistic and pretentious as it may feel, has fostered one of the most engaging, creative, and clearly understandable art festivals in the country, if not the world. There is a clear curatorial outline, an accessible premise, and a touch of craziness that makes the whole package irresistibly engaging.
If this is a cult, I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it.
