Weird gets deep and meaningful for Tasmania’s Dark Mofo 2018

LOCAL reaction has come thick and fast to Dark Mofo’s 72-hour installation act planned to take place under one of Hobart’s busiest streets.

Work in Macquarie St, Hobart, digging the hole that will house the chamber that performance artist Mike Parr will live in for 72 hours during Dark Mofo. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

LOCAL reaction has come thick and fast to Dark Mofo’s 72-hour installation act planned to take place under one of Hobart’s busiest roads.

Australian artist Mike Parr, 72, will be entombed for three days under Macquarie St in mid-June in a steel container with little more than a mattress, bucket, sketchbook, pencil and a copy of The Fatal Shore.

Commentators on social media yesterday labelled the installation “ridiculous”, with most responders concerned that taxpayer funds were being poorly appropriated.

One Mt Stuart resident said she was incensed. “It takes a lot for me to be angry. I think there are so many other important issues that should be addressed at the moment and for some lunatic to be buried under the ground. I’m not a bit interested in it,” she told the Mercury.

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On Facebook, Damien Fox said, “This is beyond stupid. We have people living in tents. The Tasmanian Government better not be paying for this joke. I’m all for art, but seriously Davey St has more ripples than the ocean and you guys are digging a hole when countless other roads in Hobart need resurfacing. Shame on you Hobart City Council.”

Others were more supportive. “People will whinge about anything. Mona does so much for this state and brings in so much money in tourism dollars,” said Mark Kempster.

Dark Mofo festival director Leigh Carmichael speaks about Mike Parr's upcoming live art installation under Macquarie St. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael thinks the strong reaction the artwork has evoked sums up the performance.

“Really the point of the work is the anxiety that it creates by thinking about it. It’s about things that happen out of sight even when we know they’re just there,” Mr Carmichael said.

“We’ll all respond and feel differently about this work. Some people will think quite deeply about it and ponder what the experience of it would be like and others might just have a fleeting moment when they think of it as just a stunt and they’ll move on and get back to what they were doing,” he said.

“I understand the comments, but there’s a lot more going on with this project than the cost.”

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“We understand it’s challenging. It’s challenging for us as well, but the small disruption that the roadworks might cause just pale in significance to the comparison to the impact that we made to the original inhabitants of this place.

“It’s not going to be comfortable for him. It’s going to be cold. It’s going to be incredibly noisy. I think it’s going to be horrific.”

Mike Parr’s controversial work Underneath the Bitumen The Artist is a silent commentary on Tasmania’s dark past with its 19th century British colonial violence against indigenous peoples and convicts.

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Dark Mofo performance curator Jarrod Rawlins. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES