Amanda Palmer pic by Shervin Laine
Brian Ritchie
Hobart’s MONA FOMA (Museum of Old and New Art Festival of Music and Art) in Tasmania, Australia, kicks off its annual summer festival this week, with a more open-ended approach than ever.
Curated by Brian Ritchie (Violent Femmes, The Break), MOFO 2015 (January 15-18) brings together unique works from artists and musicians of all genres, cultures, and artistic persuasions, for an experience of unpredictability and innovation.
“MOFO is not a genre-based festival. It’s not based upon a style, but on unique, individual artistic creativity. These are people with a perspective that’s different to anybody else – innovators,” curator Brian Ritchie said.
“When we started MOFO seven years ago, we wanted it to appeal to the broader general public, not just people who already go to cultural events. We started MOFO with that goal in mind and we thought it would take 10 years to create a new culture in Tasmania. But in a lot of ways, we got there before 10 years. Tasmania was already an open-minded place, or they wouldn’t have embraced MONA FOMA.”
MOFO’s unique cultural bent has been embraced in Tasmania and beyond. Interstate visitation to MOFO in 2010 was seven per cent, which seemed pretty good. Last year interstate visitation rose to 52 per cent. More than 28,000 people attended events over five days, with thousands traveling to Tasmania specifically for the festival.
The MOFO 2015 festival hub is back at Salamanca’s Princes Wharf 1 shed with four diversified days (Jan 15-18) including New York post-punk, seminal J-pop, a participatory smartphone orchestra, Aussie-Icelandic post-classical composition, Swedish black metal, post-punk Cretan lute, Chinese performance art, Baltimore dance beats, an eight-player Javanese gamelan orchestra pinball machine, an electric guitar orchestra, Brooklyn avant-jazz, Syrian dance music, indie folktronica (with guest Gotye), a soul supergroup (with Paul Kelly at the helm) and much more – all included in the four-day Festival Ticket (day passes also available until sold out).
Satellite events in and around Hobart that are individually ticketed or free include the notoriously loose after-party Faux Mo (this year filling the Odeon Theatre), Amanda Palmer with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at Federation Concert Hall, Iranian piano from Amir Farid and daily Morning Meditation performances at the Baha’i Centre, Neil Gaiman and friends at the Theatre Royal, Young Wagilak Group with the Australian Art Orchestra at Spring Bay Mill in Triabunna, and the MOFO Eastern Sho (with folk, tango, electronica and Indian slide-guitar raga) at Rosny Barn, and more.
Opening on Wednesday Jan 14, the giant inflatable walk-in luminarium, EXXOPOLIS, by Architects of Air (UK) on the Princes Wharf Forecourt will be a rainbow-hued immersive experience for young and old. On Saturday Jan 17, MoMa (MONA market) kicks off its season of food, music and art on the MONA lawn with some water-borne art activity on the side. Free Japanese tea ceremonies will pop up in a portable tatami room around the city with Allan Halyk and Adam Wojcinski, and a floating performance on the River Derwent by Alvin Curran (USA) with pipe, concert and army bands, as well as MOFO performers and other musicians, will cap it all off in a suitably symphonic manner on Sunday Jan 18.
MOFO is an ideal time to visit MONA too; take the MR-1 Fast Ferry up the River Derwent to see the Museum of Old and New Art’s new major exhibition, Matthew Barney: River of Fundament, brought to us by MONA owner David Walsh and MONA senior curators Nicole Durling and Olivier Varenne. Also opening at MONA on Sat Jan 17 is the Biennale of Moving Images, Hobart 2015, traveling from the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, featuring 22 new works representing the world’s most compelling emerging moving image artists.
MONA FOMA is an initiative of the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA), supported by the State Government, through Events Tasmania.
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