It's the high-pitched laugh every Australian recognises, but not many people know kookaburras were not native to Tasmania.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The City Park monkeys are the last remaining part of the former Launceston Zoo, which gained all its animals by swapping mostly thylacine puppies. This is how artist Fernando de Campo says kookaburras, also referred to as the laughing jackass, were introduced to the state in a very nationalistic moment.
He is set to bring his love for amateur bird watching and his arts background into a performance for Mona Foma.
The Kookaburra Self Re-location Project (who's Laughing Jackass) is set to be a very typical Mona project, in that no one knows when or where it will pop up throughout the city during the festival.
An earlier project has meant de Campo has created a series of painting shapes which have now become sculptures and paintings that will be used in the performance.
"They are becoming a series of textile banners and costumes for a protest. I kind of silent protest," he said.
"When it looks like we're ready to make an announcement this group of performers are going to start doing laughing exercises and kind of re-releasing laughter and communicating non verbally, but in a way failing in communicating, like the kookaburra"
