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To the heart of humanity

T has fascinated, it has enlightened, it has challenged, it has confused and it has infuriated, but most of all Dark Mofo 2017 has left a lasting impact.

From dead bull exhibitions, to Aussie hip-hop activists, to displays of Tasmania’s finest food and drink, to animal rights protests, to exhilarating laser light shows, this year’s festival has gone to a new level in terms of public awareness and impact. Not everyone has liked it. The Mercury’s letters pages have run hot with people questioning the content and the coverage. Fair enough. It is a free society in which we live.

We too found the content of the Nitsch display unpalatable, but unashamedly took the line that freedom of speech and freedom of expression were more important than personal taste.

It also was a brave decision by the State Government not to intervene when other governments in other states would have easily been drawn to a more populist, and less trusting, position in responding to the howls of protest.

If Dark Mofo had bowed to public pressure to ban the exhibition, it would have made many of us feel a little more comfortable, but it would have compromised everything for which it is stands.

It simply does not exist in a space of comfort or contentedness of complacency.

It seeks to challenge and confront and create.

What cannot be disputed is that it is, in the literal sense of the word, extraordinary.

There is no doubt people this year voted with their feet. The figures, released yesterday, are staggering.

More than 427,000 attendances were logged — an increase on 297,000 the previous year and breaking all previous attendance records. Box office income was just over $2.44 million — another recordbreaking and breathtaking amount.

Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael summed it up when he described this year’s event as “by far the most challenging festival since we began in 2013”.

“The festival pushed the audience and the staff to their limits, and its growth across the board continues to astound us,” he said.

Dark Mofo, by its very nature, will always be somewhat divisive. It seeks not to please all the people all the time. It does not always attempt to justify its actions. It is happy to confront and contradict. Sometimes it is undeniably brilliant. Other times it is downright silly. Sometimes it is itself unclear on the message it is trying to send. But that might be the point. The meaning of art, like music, often lies in the eye of the beholder.

And all these contradictions go to the heart of what it is to be human.

What cannot be disputed is that it is, in the literal sense of the word, extraordinary.

It has forever changed the face of Hobart and, in the eyes of the world, Tasmania.

And the Mercury is adamant that this change is absolutely, unreservedly for the better.

Heaven knows what they will come up with next, but it is bound to challenge, intrigue, scare, befuddle, beguile and bewilder most of us.

We can choose to be shocked and startled and fascinated or we can look the other way.