The minds behind Dark Mofo have done it again.
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Already one of the most talked about events on the Tasmanian events calendar, the festival has made headlines once again for a “controversial” inclusion in its program.
Last year, it was Hermann Nitsch’s bull slaughter, a piece that caused 20,000 people to pen their name on a petition in a bid to have it cancelled.
The show went ahead.
On Thursday night, Australian artist Mike Parr was cemented into an underground bunker, in Hobart’s busy Macquarie Street, where he’ll remain for 72 hours.
During this time, life on the surface will carry on over the top of him.
Many people have questioned why thousands of dollars would be spent on the performance piece (and the time capsule the container will be turned into after the piece), when there was a very real problem of homelessness in Hobart.
Others have asked, baffled, how is this art? This in turn reignites the age old debate of, what is art?
Many will argue that art goes beyond still life paintings; “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it,” is a quote often cited, said by German artist Bertolt Brecht.
In Parr’s case, his piece seeks to expose the realities of Tasmania’s past.
“[It] acknowledges two deeply linked events in Tasmania’s history. The eventual transportation of 75,000 British and Irish convicts in the first half of the 19th century, and the subsequent, nearly total destruction of Tasmania’s Aboriginal population,” festival creative director Leigh Carmichael said.
“The fact that Mike Parr’s work will happen underground, just out of sight, as everyday life continues above it, is clearly no coincidence.”
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has thrown its support behind Parr’s piece, saying he makes “the point that Tasmania’s historical treatment of Aboriginal people is been hidden, buried as it were, for far too long”.
If we are to take Brecht’s quote as true, where does Parr’s piece line up?
Are people talking about the piece? Yes.
Are people learning a new point of view, because of this piece? Yes.
Does it have the potential to change a way of thinking, therefore society? Yes.
So, is it art? Very clearly, yes.