Epic Design Events in Review – Part 2
Dark Mofo – 8-21st June 2017
This year Dark Mofo celebrated its 3rd year of worshipping Winter. Emerging from hibernation and descending on Tassie are lovers of art music and food. The festival is often referred to as pagan, dark, weird… But that’s seems to be exactly what the people love! Dark Mofo gives us a chance to explore the dark by sparking our curiosity, making it inviting and setting it on fire. I am also now obsessed with red crosses and neon.
This year, numbers reached epic proportion. Dark Mofo 2017 was the biggest yet, with an attendance increase of 43% recorded up from last year’s huge number of 297,000. The streets were alive with more than 470,000 people exploring the night, illuminated in red light and crosses from Hobart to Launceston.
More fire! Was the request this year from Dark Mofo’s Creative Director Leigh Carmichael. Fortunately, very own Graphic Designer, Hilary McAllister (who additionally has a super cool side hustle of her own) was there amongst it all. Not just to make us jealous, but also to provide a designers inside eye of the revelry. Below are some highlights. Again, WAY too much to fit in so I’ve provided loads of links for you to explore further.
The Winter Feast which is the culinary centrepiece of Dark Mofo had more than 95,000 through the gates of the Hall from 4pm-10pm June 15-19
This year a large fire pit glowing with charcoal was manned by Lennox Hastie, from Sydney’s Firedoor and MoNA exec chef Vince Trim who brought his Heavy Metal Kitchen to the party. The theme was ‘New Food’ and the outcome was spectacular.
More details about the food here in Gourmet Traveller.
More fire also came in the form of the Ogoh Ogoh. Dark Mofos homage to the Balinese tradition of feeding your deepest fears to a giant sculpture beast. Dark Mofo also likes to set its giant beast on fire. Hooray!!! This year the Ogoh Ogoh was a magnificent Thylacine who seemed more than happy to devour the scribbled fears of the people.
Apart from pretty much the whole place looking amazing. Here are some of our favourite design moments.
Chris Levine’s Technicolour lasers and immersive sounds transformed the night sky, organized by the sacred rules of geometry. This huge floating structure of light, resonating at OM 136.1 Hz— had a core frequency that vibrates within human and celestial bodies. For more pictures head here.
Daniel Boyd’s multimedia work called ‘Hello Darkness’ was truly enchanting. Daniel designed an interactive experience of play with figures and shapes in front of projectors. Curious explorers became immersed in the art, and produced many Instagram photos J. Aside from being visually impressive, there’s plenty to think about, with creator Daniel Boyd’s vision to ‘smash the racist lens of Australian history’. This is an artist that I knew nothing about and his work is extraordinary and inspirational. The best way to see a sample of his work is to type Daniel Boyd Artist into Google images and also explore some of his gallery biographies. This one was pretty good.
In conclusion, I suggest booking yourself in for next year. It’s only going to get bigger and better.
I highly recommend visiting the Instagram #darkmofomeet , an inspired group of Instagrammers who frolicked amongst lasers smoke and noise taking amazing pics for us all to enjoy.
This article for Broadsheet published by Marcus Teague gives you a real sense of being there and a part of it all and is a fantastic read with amazing photographs by Lusy Productions.
