Last year, in the wake of backlash from First Nations artists and members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, Dark Mofo festival in Hobart committed to the establishment of a First Nations cultural advisory group and $60,000 in seed funding for the development of works by Tasmanian Aboriginal artists.
As this year's event heads into its final weekend, ABC Arts understands that no formal First Nations cultural advisory group has been formed and the funding is yet to be allocated.
The commitment came following backlash to a proposed artwork by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, commissioned for Dark Mofo 2021, which involved soaking a Union Jack flag in the blood of First Nations peoples.
That work spurred a First Nations artist-led petition to Blak List Mona, which called for organisational change at the festival and its associated gallery Mona (Museum of Old and New Art).
Several prominent artists — including Brisbane collective proppaNOW — withdrew from the festival.
In the wake of the 'blood-soaked flag' controversy, artists spoke of Mona and Dark Mofo's history of problematic works dealing with Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and the state's history of genocide, including a 2014 work that tested for Aboriginal DNA and a 2018 performance by artist Mike Parr.
In response to the backlash, DarkLab, the creative agency that produces Dark Mofo, cancelled the Union Flag project and appointed a First Nations cultural advisor, pakana artist Caleb Nichols-Mansell, who had been one of the most vocal critics of the festival.
At the time, the agency additionally committed to appointing a First Nations cultural advisory group, which would manage the $60,000 of seed funding.
In late 2021, Dark Mofo was granted three more years of Tasmanian government funding – worth $7.5 million.
Leigh Carmichael, creative director of Dark Mofo, says that Nichols-Mansell is leading the formation of a First Nations cultural advisory group and a plan to distribute the $60,000 — which is a one-off sum.
"I think it's important to get these things right rather than get them through fast," says Carmichael.
He says it's crucial that the process is led by Nichols-Mansell, not the wider Dark Mofo team.
"Whenever I've engaged with First Nations people, for many years, I've always heard the message that self-determination is really important. Therefore I think it's important for the community, [and] the group of advisors that Caleb's working with and consulting with, to make their own decisions about how the seed funding should be used."
According to Nichols-Mansell, DarkLab has an informal First Nations advisory group, which includes himself, Bigambul/Wakka Wakka artist AJ King, and Gumbaynggir and Dunghutti artist and arts worker Dylan Hoskins, who is involved in programming at the festival, on events including The Gathering and Winter Feast.
The company also brings in community members for consultation "in an independent capacity", he says – including on the model for allocating seed funding.
He says the promised $60,000 will be expanded into a seed and skill development fund.
Carmichael says that he's still coming to terms with the Union Flag controversy, but that it has provided opportunities for learning and growth — both for the festival and for him personally.
"We're building on what was started last year. It's [the program's] been far more broader, [with] many more artists. And the heat's gone out of the situation," he says.
First Nations programming
For punters, who may have missed these conversations altogether, the biggest sign of Dark Mofo's attitude shift was the festival's opening night and weekend, which included a strong contingent of First Nations artists and musicians.
This line-up included music from Kamilaroi pop wunderkind The Kid LAROI, pakana rapper DENNI, and Butchulla hip hop artist Birdz.
They were joined by Wakka Wakka/Yaegel artist Hannah Brontë's video art installation Swell, and the opening at Mona of exhibitions by King and Fiona Hall, and Yawuru artist Robert Andrew.
There are only a handful of artists of Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage on the Dark Mofo line-up.
The most significant representation of Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples at this year's Dark Mofo was at the opening night Reclamation Walk, which returned this year after the inaugural event in 2021 (which was conceived in the fallout from Union Flag) and was co-curated by palawa/Wiradjuri artist Luana Towney and AJ King.
On opening night, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians marched down Davey Street behind palawa Elders, dancers and community members.
Afterwards, much of the crowd headed to a nearby venue to watch Tasmania-based Aboriginal musicians – Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder Uncle Dougie Mansell, Yanyuwa and Gangalidda woman MADELENA, and Yawaalaraay and Yorta Yorta man Warren Mason – share their songs and stories in an event titled The Gathering.
Up the road at the Odeon Theatre, Yorta Yorta rapper Briggs and Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji soul singer Emma Donovan (accompanied by her band The Putbacks) rounded out the First Nations opening night line-up.
MADELENA thinks that starting Dark Mofo with a First Nations line-up "set the scene and the values of the festival".
Blak List Mona
Kaurna artist and arts worker James Tylor set up Blak List Mona with Trawlwoolway and Plangermaireener artist and activist Jam Graham-Blair.
The petition called for mandatory cultural awareness training and decolonisation workshops for staff, the establishment of a First Nations advisory board, committed funding for artworks by pakana artists, and the appointment of First Nations curators at Mona, Dark Mofo, and the gallery's summer festival Mona Foma.
"The boycott's requests are just the same standard requirements as other state institutions have done years ago," Tylor says.
"[But] since the Blak List Mona boycott there's nothing that I can see, apart from there being a bigger Indigenous line-up in Dark Mofo, that really shows a clear improvement.
"It is only a year on. Some people would say institutional change takes a long time. But in a private institution, it should happen far faster than the public sector."
Mona does not have First Nations curators, a First Nations advisory board or a Reconciliation Action Plan. The gallery does offer cultural awareness training for staff, but it is not mandatory.
"We have spent time talking with community about issues that need attention from us (for example, cultural awareness staff training), and we are committed to continuing to do this," Jarrod Rawlins, Mona's director of curatorial affairs, said in a statement to ABC Arts.
"Relationships between First Nations peoples and high-profile organisations require constant learning and discussion to understand and to address people's concerns, because people's concerns are ever-shifting and evolving."
There are no committed funds for work by Tasmanian Aboriginal artists.
"From a programming and acquisition perspective, we don't carve off and apportion funds to specific genres. That said, we have, and continue to, make exhibitions by and acquisitions of art by Tasmanian Aboriginal artists and non-Tasmanian Aboriginal artists," said Rawlins.
Robert Andrew's exhibition at Mona, which opened as part of Dark Mofo, is the first solo exhibition by an Aboriginal artist at the gallery. No Tasmanian Aboriginal artists have had a solo exhibition at the gallery since it opened in 2011.
Tylor says Mona is behind a number of institutions which are working towards best practice in terms of Indigenous inclusion and consultation.
"Mona always tries to be this cutting-edge, avant-garde kind of institution, but if they can't achieve best practice when working with Aboriginal people, they're not leading in any single way, shape or form; they really are quite outdated.
Rawlins said that Mona has always been committed to engagement and consultation with First Nations peoples: "We have always undertaken due research and consultation and our commitment now remains as strong as it has been."
Tylor suggests that best practice engagement for galleries involves having Indigenous people on staff and on the board, a cultural advisory panel, and an Indigenous co-director.
He says he had a "really good" experience working with Mona Foma in 2020 on the installation Kipli Paywuta Lumi, which invited audiences to experience palawa culture and food in a dome-shaped bush hut.
But one of the challenges of the project was improving the relationship between Mona and both the Tasmanian and mainland Aboriginal communities.
"I felt pretty pissed off [about Union Flag] … For that to happen was just a bit of a kick in the guts to the work that had been done [at Mona Foma]," he says.
While Tylor is frustrated by the pace of change, he makes the point that there is no expectation that the festival and gallery will ever enact all of the boycott's requests – because they never publicly committed to do so.
"There's nothing to hold them against," he says.
A road map
First Nations cultural advisor and pakana artist Caleb Nichols-Mansell told ABC Arts that DarkLab has used the boycott's requests as a kind of "road map".
"[We understand that] this is what the First Nations arts and cultural community is asking for, this is what they want, and this is what they expect as a standard across the board," he says.
He says that DarkLab has undertaken cultural awareness and sensitivity training, and it is committed to giving First Nations artists and arts workers the opportunity to develop their skills so they can build long-term, sustainable careers.
"It's all well and good commissioning an Aboriginal artist for a festival to do an artwork. But what then happens to that Aboriginal artist after the festival?" he asks.
"When you look at that blacklisting and you talk about things like First Nations curators and First Nations producers and First Nations directors, it's all well and good to want those things. But then when you look for those things within the community, they don't currently exist, or they're in their infancy."
He acknowledges that the events of 2021 revealed a systemic problem within DarkLab but describes the suggestions from the Blak List campaign as "temporary fixes".
Engaging Tasmanian Aboriginal communities
Nichols-Mansell felt blacklisting Mona was not a viable option for him. He decided to work with the festival after first speaking to Elders in the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
"The Tasmanian Aboriginal community were in a position of either work with Dark Mofo and find a solution to this, or just be completely disengaged from one of Tasmania's largest festivals and run the risk of not having a platform to tell our stories and to tell our history and share our culture," he says.
Bigambul/Wakka Wakka artist AJ King agrees: "What needs to happen is education, conversations, and change. And you can't do that if you're absolutely blacklisting people."
Nichols-Mansell insists that the Union Flag controversy has led to meaningful change, pointing to the increase in First Nations programming at Dark Mofo.
"That in itself was a feat because we obviously had to re-engage with First Nations artists all around Australia and Tasmania, who had obviously been part of or heard of the boycott against Dark Mofo and DarkLab."
MADELENA, who performed at The Gathering, says she didn't feel hesitant to participate in Dark Mofo this year after the events of 2021.
"What happened last year started a good conversation and they've come up with some outcomes … I think the conversation was the interesting part, and the outcome and moving forward," she says.
Nichols-Mansell also notes the ongoing success of Reclamation Walk, whose audience he says grew from about 3000 people in 2021 to an estimated 5000-6000 this year.
"Even just the increase in attendance at Reclamation Walk shows how important that community-sharing of knowledge, culture and history is."
But he also acknowledges that it hasn't been easy to convince Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples to work with Dark Mofo.
He thinks that Tasmanian Aboriginal artists may be exercising "caution" at this time.
"They're sitting back; they're seeing what's happening; they're seeing what unfolds," he says.
Nichols-Mansell also points out that the Tasmanian Aboriginal community is already fighting on a number of fronts – such as for land return, political representation and treaty.
There's an inherent tension between First Nations artists, and festivals and galleries, he notes – because artists often need to hand over their work to non-Indigenous producers.
He sees part of the solution in the seed and development funding committed by DarkLab.
"When we're able to employ Black producers and Black directors to work on these projects and to fully realise these concepts, I truly feel that that's when we will have a massive influx of Tasmanian Aboriginal artists being a part of the festival."
Collaboration with local knowledge holders
One of the goals of the Blak List Mona petition was the employment of First Nations curators at Dark Mofo, Mona Foma and Mona.
While Mona does not have a full-time First Nations curator on staff, it consults with First Nations experts on a project by project basis.
Mona senior curator Emma Pike says that she speaks to pakana curator Zoe Rimmer whenever she wants to work with an Aboriginal artist at the gallery.
"[I ask] 'What do you think? How do you think I need to structure this project so that it's respectful?'
"I bring her on as a co-curator if something's super complex and I really need her guidance on who in the community needs to be involved."
Rimmer was brought on as a consultant for Yawuru artist Robert Andrew's exhibition Within an utterance, which opened at Mona as part of Dark Mofo's first weekend.
The exhibition is made up of three works, each a kind of "moving landscape".
One is a piece of video art that uses ochre, palawa kani (Tasmanian Aboriginal language) and images. In another, a block of soil is gradually eroded by a mechanism that drips water onto it, eventually revealing a palawa kani word. In the last work, a machine traces a palawa kani word. The mechanism is connected to an assemblage of rocks and burnt branches that slowly make corresponding patterns on the walls.
The work continues Andrew's ongoing series of kinetic sculptures drawing on Indigenous languages, made in consultation with Indigenous knowledge holders (including recent works at the Biennale of Sydney and the National Indigenous Art Triennial in Canberra).
From the beginning of the process of making the exhibition, Andrew and Pike engaged Rimmer, as well as pakana academic and Aboriginal linguistic consultant Theresa Sainty, and Wakka Wakka cultural burning practitioner Luke Mabb.
Following a series of conversations with Andrew, these collaborators gifted the project with palawa kani language, ochre from Mumirimina Country, and charcoal from cultural sites on Melukerdee Country.
When Andrew and his collaborators went together to Country to collect materials, including ochre and branches, they had many of the conversations that fed into Within an utterance.
"I think it's important that the artwork has a relationship with the people and the Country."
One of Andrew's works at Mona, titled A Connective Reveal — Language in Country, is a rectangular block of soil that gradually breaks down over time, revealing layers of ochre, gravel and red iron oxide. Eventually a word in palawa kani will be unearthed.
The piece is informed both by the blockish architecture of Mona, and by 12 middens dotted around the peninsula.
Some of these middens have been disturbed; others covered by landscaping; and some were destroyed in the development of Mona and the surrounding area – issues raised in the Blak List Mona petition.
Acknowledging this kind of troubled history is part of Andrew's practice.
"In everything that I do, I have to look at my impact of just being here or being in any other gallery; the land that it sits on and what was here before is always there," he says.
Continuing conversation
Bigambul/Wakka Wakka artist and Reclamation Walk co-curator AJ King was initially critical of Dark Mofo and the Union Flag project.
Yet he came on board the festival last year as part of Home State nipaluna, which saw him and Hobart-based artist Fiona Hall construct a bark hut in a disused homewares shop, where First Nations people would sleep, weave, and occupy space throughout the festival.
When it was time to harvest material for the hut, King invited Leigh Carmichael and other Dark Mofo staff to come along.
"As soon as people can look people in the eye and have a conversation, then you've got a foundation for change," says King.
"You get around the fire, you talk about it, you talk about the hurt, you talk about the pain, you talk about the thing that should never happen again, and you talk about the journey ahead."
This year King is a co-curator of the Reclamation Walk, and has created a new exhibition with Hall, which opened at Mona in the first weekend of the festival.
Hall had originally proposed to build a burnt-out hut in 2021 in the shop space to draw attention to issues around environmental degradation. She and King picked up that theme for this year's exhibition, Exodust – Crying Country.
"It was a fantastic journey we did together [making Home State nipaluna]. And AJ and I agreed at the end of that it'd be great to do something together again," says Hall.
The work features a path through a barren landscape of burned tree trunks and orange soil leading to a settler's hut made from bark and timber. In that hut, the walls are papered with images of past and present political figures and scenes of war and devastation.
A living tree, a coffin, and a cradle are positioned in the middle of the room, with a possum skin cloak and clapsticks placed upon the coffin. Recycled plastic bottles on the back wall together make a kind of stained-glass window that reads "XODUST".
The work touches on all manner of man-made ills – from climate change to war, deforestation and colonisation.
"This collaboration is about the local and the universal on Planet Earth, and the devastation that we're having to find ways to overcome," says Hall.
As with Home State nipaluna, community engagement is central to Exodust, with many Aboriginal people involved in the process, including in harvesting materials.
The group started their days harvesting on Country with a ceremony – one that was shared with non-Indigenous logging contractors who were brought on board to help with the project.
"This was just new ground completely, but it's also another opportunity for conversations and connections," says King.
With Tasmanian Aboriginal community members and Mona's production team, he would also burn stringybark on the grounds of Mona to be used for the outside of the hut. Cooking mutton bird over that fire provided another space for conversation.
King recalls teaching them the palawa kani word for tree ferns: 'lakri'.
"I overheard a couple of conversations where staff were talking to each other and the word that they were using was 'lakri'. And they're gonna go home and talk to their children, and every time they see a man fern, they're going to say the word 'lakri'.
"[Those conversations are] some of the most important elements of the installation and the journey."
The voices of First Nations Elders – not just from Tasmania and Australia, but from New Zealand and the Pacific – can be heard throughout the exhibition space, talking about the impacts of colonisation and the power of caring for Country.
"[The work says] that the way forward rests with First Nations peoples: the knowledge that we have of Country and place, and [the] connection and the history of living on these landscapes, on this Country for thousands of years. The way forward is there if we're only to listen," says King.
A best practice model
King says that the festival needs to do more than just increase First Nations programming.
"I think there's still a lot more work to be done behind the scenes to ensure that that commitment [to change] is there, and that opportunities for Aboriginal people are there, and that those opportunities are provided in a way that is culturally safe and appropriate for our people."
Like James Tylor, he believes hiring First Nations people at all levels of the organisation is crucial.
"Let's have a co-creative director that's also a First Nations person or an Aboriginal person," he says.
But King is optimistic about the future.
