Artist in market for blood takes stand against colonialism

The popular, regularly controversial Hobart-based midwinter arts festival Dark Mofo has issued a nationwide call-out for First Nations people to donate a small amount of blood.

Dark Mofo will seek to fly to Hobart from anywhere in Australia one randomly selected volunteer representing each of the First Nations people from countries colonised by the British. Picture: AAP

Dark Mofo wants your blood. The popular, regularly controversial Hobart-based midwinter arts festival has issued a nationwide call-out for First Nations people to donate a small amount of blood that will form part of the June festival’s major artwork, Union Flag.

The work is the brainchild of Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, who plans to immerse the British flag in a bucket of blood from First Nations people whose countries were colonised by the British. The flag will then be displayed for the duration of the week-long festival.

Speaking exclusively to the Weekend Australian through a translator from his home in Madrid, Sierra said: “I would like my work to vindicate the cultures of the world that have been denied and devastated through the length and breadth of our planet, and in particular the Australian Aboriginal culture which has taken an ­important part of this destruction … and to denigrate the image of imperialism in general and British imperialism in particular.”

Sierra was at pains to point out Union Flag was a broad statement against all historical acts of colonisation, be it by the Spanish, French, Portuguese or United States, highlighting the ongoing injustices that exist as a result.

“The importance of this project lies not so much in particular historical events but in a reconsideration of the present, because we are still giving our blood to the cause of imperialism,” he said.

Dark Mofo will seek to fly to Hobart from anywhere in Australia one randomly selected volunteer representing each of the First Nations people from countries colonised by the British, for example New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Australia.

Once in Hobart they will ­donate a small amount of blood (about 470ml) under medical supervision. Dark Mofo will also pay the volunteer a stipend and cover their accommodation, providing this is legal.

“We wouldn’t expect people to take two days out of their lives for our project and not be compensated, but it depends on what the law allows,” Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said.

Sierra, 54, has exhibited in prestigious galleries the world over, including London’s Tate Modern, MoMA PS1 in New York and locally at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, with work that regularly challenges social, political and economic inequality.

Previous works include placing black flags at both the North and South poles, another anti-imperialist statement made “with a flag that denies the others”; building a grid-like installation constructed out of military razor wire that blocked the entire Lisson Gallery space in London; and Veterans of War, Sierra’s contribution to Kaldor Public Art Project’s 13 Rooms in Sydney, in which viewers ­observed an Australian veteran of the Afghanistan or Iraq conflicts standing silently facing the corner of a blank room; a project that also ran in other countries.