Leigh Carmichael, the founding creative director of Hobart’s wildly successful Dark Mofo festival, has revealed the strain he was under during the 2021 Union Flag controversy and questioned the art world’s willingness to discuss controversial ideas. “I can’t even do what I want to do any more,” he tells The Australian Financial Review Magazine. “And I don’t know if the world even wants it.”

Union Flag, by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, and programmed by Carmichael for the 2021 Dark Mofo festival, was to feature a British flag soaked in blood donated by Indigenous people from across the globe. The work had been intended as a denouncement of colonialism but instead triggered accusations of racism and a campaign to force Carmichael from the helm of the festival he created 10 years ago. Amid the furore the artwork was cancelled and Carmichael has since revealed that this year’s Dark Mofo festival will be his last.