Dark Mofo Returns With First Commissioned Artwork Revealed
Australia’s most renowned winter solstice celebration, Dark Mofo, is officially returning in full this June.
After winding back the programming in 2024, the festival has already seen 6,000 pre-release tickets sold out in November last year ahead of the full program release in April. Launching in 2013 by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Dark Mofo continues to gain popularity around the globe for its celebration of independent thinking, fun yet often twisted fantasies in the picturesque Tasmania.
Today, we get a first glimpse of what we can expect from the contemporary art program with the announcement of the first commissioned art piece by multidisciplinary Trawlwoolway artist Nathan Maynard. Maynard is known for his work exploring race, community power and identity, making headlines in 2023 for a callout for ‘Australians of British descent willing to donate their future deceased body to an art installation’ in The Age. The said art installation, titled Relics Act, spoke to the sacrifice for past sins perpetrated against the Palawa and concluded with a ceremonial act of repatriation. The Dark Mofo commissioned piece will continue along these themes of remains and reclamation. As Maynard explains of the titled piece, We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep:
‘Languishing in museums and their storerooms are the remains of ancestors of First Nations people from all around our globe. They have been stripped of identity and, without consent, treated like specimens for study and scientific inquiry. We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep speaks to the sadistic power white institutions flex when they deny First Nations people the humanity of putting our ancestor’s remains to rest in the physical and the spiritual.'
This is the first artwork to be revealed by the festival which will include a packed program of contemporary art, live music and rituals across two weeks. Make sure you set an alarm for 10am, April 4th when the full program is announced and get your travel plans arranged for the funnest weekend in winter.
