Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the last two weeks sunrise and sunset in Hobart have been marked by an eerie, echoing call: vocalists broadcast throughout the city from 450 loudspeakers mounted on Hobart buildings and able to be heard for kilometres on a clear day. The sound installation Siren Song, produced by Byron Scullin and Hannah Fox, reminds visitors and residents that despite the dark the city of Hobart is about to become alive. It is the winter that we have all come to love. 2017 was the fifth year that Hobart has played host to Dark Mofo, the Museum of Old and New Art's midwinter festival. As the sun sets, the city is lit up by music, sound, art and lighting, with local producers showing off a winter feast of food to die for. Winter nights in Hobart are the longest nights in Australia, but while Dark Mofo was taking place you would hardly notice. The festival's impact is felt beyond the 10 days that it literally illuminates the city.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating understood the rich social dividend of the arts. He said:

Culture creates wealth … Culture employs … Culture adds value, it makes an essential contribution to innovation, marketing and design … It attracts tourists and students. It is essential to our economic success.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Tasmania in midwinter. Dark Mofo engages 665 artists at 67 different events across 25 different Hobart venues. The festival employs over 1,000 people and brings at least 8,000 interstate and overseas visitors to our island every year. It is estimated to generate $50 million for the state's economy. Its contribution to Tasmanian culture is also of unique significance. Dark Mofo has cemented our state's reputation as a place of vibrant culture, a warm and welcoming haven in the depths of winter and a place of unflinching commitment to artistic expression. It allows us to access a part of the city that we did not even know about, experiences we had not felt or had forgotten. In the words of its incredibly talented creative director, Leigh Carmichael, Dark Mofo explores the full spectrum of human emotion, enabling a deeper understanding of the nature of existence. This festival is unique in its determination to foster that understanding, not only amongst those who actually attend, but in every member of the community, every person in Hobart. Installations which command the whole city's attention have been a hallmark of Dark Mofo since its inception, from Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra, which projected a column of light 15 kilometres into the sky, and Anthony McCall's Night Ship, which beamed a searchlight into the suburbs from up and down the Derwent River, to this year's Siren Song.

Dark Mofo makes art the property of the community. It gives us a sense of ownership of the place in which we live. It is a catalyst for public reflection and for debate and discussion between friends, neighbours and strangers. It unites Tasmanians and visitors in admiration and in wonder. In illuminating the city and igniting that discussion and debate around the state, Dark Mofo is a very visible testament to arts' capacity to bring people together, to challenge us and to ask big questions of us. Dark Mofo is unafraid to do that, and I love that about it. It demonstrates that culture and creativity form the fabric of understanding that binds communities and enriches lives—so many of which have been enriched during these last two weeks in Hobart.

Indeed, the entire city has been booked out. Hotels, restaurants and transport businesses all benefited from this festival. The city, in the middle of winter, was just buzzing. One of my favourite parts of this year's Dark Mofo festival was Chris Levine's incredible, geometrical, technicolour lasers with immersed vibrating sounds beaming out from a dark, old abandoned warehouse in Dark Park near the waterfront. This legendary UK artist put on a light show, the likes of which had never been seen in Australia before. It was absolutely amazing, and, indeed, it was bringing light out of the darkness.

Everyone loves the Dark Mofo and City of Hobart Winter Feast, but one part of the festival that has never gotten me to partake in is the now annual Dark Mofo Nude Solstice Swim. Hundreds of people, this morning at sunrise, braved the cold to go nude for a dip in the chilly Derwent River to mark the end of the longest night of the year. Tasmania was also enriched and cleansed on Sunday's winter solstice by the annual ogoh-ogoh monster-burning ritual that rid our island home of negative tensions and welcomed the day after our darkest day.

It is through art like this that Dark Mofo encourages an appreciation of diversity, exposing us to new ideas and perspectives beyond the limits of our own experiences. Leigh Carmichael said, 'There's a school of thought that believes it's by facing our fears and embracing the darkness that we more deeply appreciate the light and the joy.' On Sunday night, 18,000 fears went up in flames with a loud bang as the bamboo and papier-mache Tasmanian tiger ogoh-ogoh was paraded through the streets of Hobart, from Castray Esplanade to its fiery end at Dark Park. Thousands of people lined the streets to be part of this noisy ogoh-ogoh Tasmanian tiger procession—sharing with us this Balinese tradition—that was carrying all their fears to be burnt away. This is something we have come to embrace and support with such positivity as part of the Dark Mofo festival. After all, what is there not to like about getting rid of all your fears? This incredible sculpture took three Balinese artists three weeks to make and was then left on display in the Dark Park for the duration of the festival for people to come in, write down their fears and place them inside the belly of the tiger. It was such a highlight, and, indeed, people felt a sense of ownership of their ogoh-ogoh.

I am really proud to live in and be the representative of such a vibrant, welcoming and culturally diverse community. On behalf of the thousands of members of this community who attended Dark Mofo, again, in this 2017 year, we give our thanks to the festival's drivers, Leigh Carmichael and Kate Gould, as well as the founder and owner of MONA, David Walsh, who has made an extraordinary impact on Tasmania through building the Museum of Old and New Art. Indeed, he has been key to Tasmania's growing cultural renaissance. I look forward to what the light coming out of the dark will look like next year, but one thing I know is: if Leigh and Kate have anything to do with it, it will not disappoint.