Mona’s midwinter festival is a maelstrom of cultural events, enticing an annual pilgrimage to the southern island of Australia to celebrate the night through large-scale public art, food, film, music, light and noise.
This year’s event features Mike Parr’s Asylum, arriving as a one-off installation in which the seminal Australian artist will create works in response to a mental institution dating to 1827, including Entry by Mirror Only – a 72-hour performance in which Parr will continue to draw as much as possible. The cost of admission? A mirror, of any kind, to be left behind.
Mike Parr’s Asylum is a one-off installation at Willow Court in the Derwent Valley, in which the seminal Australian performance artist will create works in response to the site of an historic mental institution dating from 1827. Asylum will occupy different buildings including The Barracks, “C Block” (former “Male Maximum Security Ward for the Criminally Insane”), “Allonah” (former “Female Maximum Security Ward for the Criminally Insane”), and the Occupational Therapy Block, with video, sound, photos, objects, and an interactive piece.
Leading the charge for the opening night party, ZHU will take over the Neon City with a cocktail of electronica and deep house. ZHU will kick off a weekend of after-hours queer and dark music programming.
Elsewhere, Dark Park will arrive as an industrial public art playground featuring works from international artists with immersive and interactive installations. Look out for Our Time, featuring a grid of pendulums suspended in a huge warehouse, alongside The Cloud – featuring hundreds of illuminated faces hanging overhead in bottles, weeping into a thin skim of water on the ground below.
Further program highlights include House of Mirrors – a chamber of kaleidoscopic reflections; A Galaxy of Suns featuring symphonic arrangements of constellations; Mona’s winter exhibition Field Lines as well as performances from Cult of Fire, Tribulation, Dead Congregation, Inverloch, Savages, Itchy-O, Chelsea Wolfe with intimate performances from Ryoji Ikeda, Lustmord, Tim Hecker, Marcel Weber and a whole lot more.
