As Dark Mofo approaches its final weekend, a promised First Nations advisory group and seed funding are still works-in-progress, but the festival maintains it is committed to doing better.
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 mostAt the time, the agency additionally committed to appointing a First Nations cultural advisory group, which would manage the $60,000 of seed funding.– worth $7.5 million.
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. 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.“[The Reclamation Walk is] not an Aboriginal community event. It's a work of art that's been curated by two Aboriginal people,” says King.
Up the road at the Odeon Theatre, Yorta Yorta rapper Briggs and Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji soul singer Emma Donovan rounded out the First Nations opening night line-up. 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.
"We have spent time talking with community about issues that need attention from us , and we are committed to continuing to do this," Jarrod Rawlins, Mona's director of curatorial affairs, said in a statement to ABC Arts. "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when working with Aboriginal people, they're not leading in any single way, shape or form; they really are quite outdated.
"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. "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."
"We've spent the last year literally working day-in, day-out, on initiatives and ideas of how best to approach community [and] how best to engage them," says Nichols-Mansell. MADELENA, who performed at The Gathering, says she didn't feel hesitant to participate in Dark Mofo this year after the events of 2021.
"Even just the increase in attendance at Reclamation Walk shows how important that community-sharing of knowledge, culture and history is." 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."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.
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