Hobart’s Lord Mayor Ron Christie has declared he wants to “put the brakes” on Dark Mofo – or what he describes as a “shock festival” – arguing the annual winter festival is generating an “unhealthy culture”.
If by ‘unhealthy culture’ he means a bunch of money and heaps of fun, I guess he’s right…
Apparently, Christie was triggered by Mike Parr’s recent performance work Underneath the Bitumen – in which the provocative performance artist was buried underneath a busy Hobart road.
Preparations are underway to bury artist Mike Parr underneath bitumen in central Hobart for @monamuseum @Dark_Mofo https://t.co/c4NLTYPZxg #MikeParr #performanceart pic.twitter.com/dmmYVQM7y9
— Eyeline Publishing (@eyelinemagazine) May 30, 2018
Parr’s work was designed to memorialise “the genocidal violence of nineteenth-century British colonialism in Australia”, but Christie thought it was “a step too far”.
And now, Dark Mofo must pay. Literally. Christie is threatening to pull the funding which Hobart City currently provides Dark Mofo: $280,000 annually.
This, despite the fact Dark Mofo generates an estimated $50 million for the Hobart city’s economy each year, and has done wonders to transform Tasmania’s reputation from the mainland’s weird inbred cousin to the cool, gothy older brother who has incredibly interesting friends and throws the best parties.
Dark Mofo, now in its sixth year, has also solved a pretty massive problem for Tasmania’s tourism industry.
“Forever we’ve been trying to crack this nut — how do we get people to embrace our winter?” the Tourism Industry Council’s Luke Martin said.
“Dark Mofo has done it in spades.”
He also added if Hobart didn’t want to host the festival “the people of Burnie or Launceston or Sydney or Melbourne would absolutely dream for it”.
Yes, Sydney! Bring it to Sydney! I could totally see a VIVID/Dark Mofo combo. WHat could go wrong?
Thankfully, he’s not the only reasonable person speaking out against Christie’s unreasonable plan.
The head of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Michael Bailey was also cheesed off with Christie’s comments which he said “leapt out of the 1950s”.
“I think the Lord Mayor is very much out of step and out of touch with the community, and I suspect that there will be a significant backlash,” Mr Bailey said.
Council members Philip Cocker and Bill Harvey also threw some shade Christie’s way.
Cocker advised Christie to “pull his head in” while Harvey urged the Mayor to spend some time actually getting familiar with the festival before he, you know, cans the entire thing.
“I think he just needs to chill out a bit and go down and enjoy Dark Mofo,” Harvey said.
The festival’s creative director Leigh Carmichael said there were no plans to move the festival, even if council support dried up.
And even if MONA founder David Walsh didn’t just pour a bunch more of his money in to fill the gap, I reckon plenty of people would happily get behind a GoFundMe campaign to save Dark Mofo – if only to annoy a few super-conservative mofos.
