Dark Mofo will transform the Spirit of Tasmania V into a floating art gallery when Tasmania’s premier winter festival returns in June.
The 48,000-tonne ship will be moored alongside the site of Dark Park, the festival’s waterfront precinct in Hobart, and will showcase artworks below deck as part of the 12-day festival running from June 11-22.
“[It] will be an incredible experience of seeing art inside this massive ocean-going vessel,” Artistic Director of Dark Mofo Chris Twite said.
“For Spirit 5, we’re going to be using the freight decks, these giant, long industrial spaces that usually host vehicles and trucks and cars, but we’re turning them into pavilions for art and it should be an incredible experience.”
“We’ve always wanted to partner with some of these incredible vessels in our harbour and it’s just a luck of timing that the Spirit 5 will be here and that the TT-Line are open to this incredible collaboration, I think is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The ferry will be in Hobart from June 8 to June 30 for the final local fit out.
The return of Dark Mofo in 2025 attracted over 50,000 interstate and overseas visitors to Tasmania, following a one-year hiatus.
“Dark Mofo is an iconic Tasmanian event and a recognised world-class winter festival,” Tourism Minister Jane Howlett said.
“We know the festival drives significant interstate and international visitation to Tasmania during our off-season.”
Howlett said last year’s festival recorded 120,000 unique attendees and delivered over $67 million in economic benefit to the state.
This year’s festival will feature provocative international artists alongside popular traditions including the Winter Feast, Night Mass and the Ogoh-Ogoh procession.
The festival’s procession will feature a giant Pedra Branca skink crafted by Balinese artists, which will be sacrificed in flames at the Regatta Grounds.
Musical highlights include exclusive Australian performances by Princess Nokia, Power Trip and Sega Bodega, with the lineup spanning genres from hyperpop to black metal.
Art installations will fill venues from giant warehouses to a former piano showroom and abandoned institutions across Hobart and Launceston.
Twite said the program confronts “the things that keep us up at night”.
“Boundary-pushing artists from all over the world will descend on Tasmania to nourish visitors hungry for challenge, discovery and distraction,” he said.
The festival will close with the traditional Nude Solstice Swim at Long Beach in Sandy Bay on June 22.
Tickets go on sale to subscribers at 10am on Wednesday April 1 and to the general public from midday on the Dark Mofo website.
