Nights Of Darkness

Each year in June, remote Hobart hosts a unique music and arts festival that gives new meaning to the word ‘culture’.

- Jane Rocca

As one of Australia’s most talked-about visual art and music festivals, Dark Mofo has fast become an important cultural statement that attracts interstate and international visitors to Hobart, Tasmania every year.

The winter solstice festival, which usually runs over two weeks in June, was extended to three this year due to popularity. This is where pagan influences, events after-dark and exhibitions with even darker themes encourage visitors to think outside the box.

The festival itself is possible thanks to Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) founder David Walsh, who opened one of the largest privately funded museums in the southern hemisphere in 2011. His modus operandi was to open a museum dedicated to sex and death. A new hotel is set to open on the site too.

Dark Mofo, and its summer sidekick MONA FOMA, which happens in January, revolve around the museum’s approach to public art and installation. Walsh once described Mona as “a subversive adult Disneyland” and what visitors get when they come to Dark Mofo in the depths of winter chimes on the same philosophical point of view.

But while art and music form the core of Dark Mofo, it’s also so much more than that. This year, a cruise dubbed Natty Waves took visitors on a journey of electronic beats, wine tasting and local food to feast on for a three-hour trip.

Night Mass, which kicked off at 10pm and crawled into the wee hours, was when performance artists, metal bands, VR installations and dance parties spilled from theatres to pavements all in the name of a darkly good time.

And then there’s Winter Feast, set on the waterfront at Salamanca, a family-friendly setting where indigenous food and a heavy metal kitchen unveiled the importance of banquets cooked over an open fire after dark. Candles burned brightly, red crosses and neon ones lit the way, and a changing line-up of entertainers added to the vibe.