Not all events carry a ticket price, and we can thank Mona’s Darklings for that. Dark Mofo takes over the city of Hobart in a flurry of red-hot fire and neon light for the duration of the winter solstice festival, so just look a little further for value-add experiences that won’t break your bank.
SPECTRA RYOJI IKEDA
Ryoji Ikeda’s spectra appeared at the first Dark Mofo in 2013. Now, on the winter solstice, join us in Mona’s grounds for its return: a towering pillar of powerful searchlights reaching high into the night sky. Evening ferries will shuttle you to and from the museum – book tickets now. This temporary installation of spectra for Dark Mofo 2018 will soon be replaced by a permanent version on Mona’s Berriedale grounds.
21 — 24 June, from sunset to sunrise, Museum of Old and New Art.
LOU REED: DRONES (Aus exclusive)
Immerse in the sound bath created by the late Lou Reed’s guitars and amps, brought to us by Laurie Anderson and Reed’s friend and former guitar tech Stewart Hurwood. As 24 strings are activated by magnetic cones, they unleash cascading and colliding waves of feedback. Enter, sit, lay down, listen, meditate, cry, dance, chant, practice Tai Chi.
A JOURNEY TO FREEDOM AT TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
The story of human progress is one of emancipation — and incarceration. This new exhibition at TMAG gathers artists working with sculpture, installation, video, photography and virtual reality from Australia and around the world to break open ideas of imprisonment — from physical confinement in spaces like jails and detention centres, to the numerous bodily, psychological and social prisons we construct for ourselves and others.
With Janet Biggs, Nicolas Daubanes, Mounir Fatmi, Shaun Gladwell, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Ali Kazma, Rachel Labastie, Ricky Maynard, Robert Montgomery, Jean-Michel Panci, Jhafis Quintero, Sam Wallman, curated by Barbara Polla (Switzerland) with Olivier Varenne (Mona) and Mary Knights (TMAG).
Grand opening: 8 June, 6–9pm, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Exhibition continues until 29 July. See the website for more.
THE PINK PALACE CONSTANCE ARI + RISDON PRISON ARTISTS
In 1963, the colour of the walls at Tasmania’s Risdon Prison led the Mercury newspaper in Hobart to dub it ‘The Pink Palace’. Despite its slow fade into beige, the nickname stuck. Over the past six months, four Tasmanian artists have been working in collaboration with four Risdon Prison inmates to create a series of new video works, featuring: a potato currency, virtual inmates, endurance performance by proxy and a horse named Salvatore. Time moves differently on the inside. Artworks by Samuel & Kristy, Michael & Tess, Dexter & Patrick, Karen & Maria. Time moves differently on the inside. Presented by Constance ARI and Dark Mofo.
Opens 8 June, 5–9pm, Old Good Year Warehouse. Continues TBC 9 — 10 June, 13 — 17 June and 20 — 24 June.
INVISIBLE HOUSE AT SALAMANCA ARTS CENTRE
"But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the centuries: though with fire and sword it be burnt down & shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth…" — Liber AL vel Legis 3:34
Invisible House is a ground-breaking cross-media program that seeks to unsettle the barriers between performance, and static arts; science and magic; space and time. Salamanca Arts Centre, after consolidating 40 years in 2017, throws open its walls, halls and spaces to maverick filmmakers, visionary photographers, installation artists, automatic painters, and committed ritualists in a celebration of arcane knowledge, the sacred and the numinous.
Opening 14 June, 6–9pm, Salamanca Arts Centre. Continues 15 — 25 June, times vary.
TOHUVBOHU BY BRENDAN WALLS
A chamber of sound and light, where public and private rituals build to an ecstatic twenty-four-hour live performance for strings, percussion and field recordings, by local experimental musicians. Medium: Sound, Altars, light, gorse, salt, field recordings, viola, percussion.
BARRY WILLIAM HALE & NOKO
In NOKO mode with Scott Barnes, Sydney-based artist Barry William Hale enters into a trance state through esoteric art, occult rituals, live music and hundreds of audio-visual artworks. Medium: Sound, Ink, blood, voice, ritual, trance.
WILLIAM MORTENSEN: GROTESQUE AND VISIONARY PHOTOGRAPHIC CREATIONS FROM (WORLD EXCLUSIVE)
William Mortensen (1897-1965), the man Ansel Adams once called “the Antichrist”. Loaned to us by the Stephen Romano Gallery in New York, these thirty works have never been exhibited before. Medium: Photography.
AMERICAN MAGUS BY HARRY SMITH
This retrospective ponders the pioneering film works of Harry Smith (1923-1991): American filmmaker, painter, folk music historian and occultist. An Australian premiere, presented by Dark Mofo and Salamanca Arts Centre. Medium: Light, celluloid, paint, dioramas, collage. See the website for screening times.
LANDING TANYA LEE
Swim the distance between Australia and Manus Island in a cumulative 24-hour marathon relay at the Hobart Aquatic Centre. Tanya Lee’s Landing invites you to physically experience distance and participate in a policy of exile, which both underpinned Australia’s colonisation and is maintained today though the offshore detention of asylum seekers. Swimmers will plunge into Hobart Aquatic Centre’s Olympic-sized pool, in a group effort to swim the distance of that perilous ocean stretch.
9 — 10 June, Doone Kennedy Hobart Aquatic Centre, Aberdeen Street. Register online to participate
WINTER FEAST
The gastronomical heart and soul of Dark Mofo is returning for its sixth iteration this year, taking place on seven nights over two weekends and consuming Princes Wharf, along Hobart’s Salamanca waterfront. The feast is a contemporary take on pagan solstice celebrations, as the community gathers around fires and under the stars to eat, drink and celebrate as the longest night of the year approaches in Australia’s southernmost city.
DARK PARK
Dark Mofo's after-dark industrial playground, featuring large-scale light and fire installations, plus sculpture, performance and live music. The Talisker Dark Bar and Moo Brew + Moorilla's Black Diamond Ski Manor Bar will be serving warming tipples by the fire.
15 – 17 June, 5pm – 10pm; 21 – 24 June, 5pm – 10pm, Macquarie Point
Head over to the Dark Mofo website for more details.
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