Dark Mofo

The hour is at hand.

This winter, Dark Mofo returns to Hobart, Mona and beyond with rituals old and new.

The festival, on the wild island state of Tasmania, runs across three weeks in 2018 and kicks off with the Prelude weekend (7-10 June) before the festival proper is unleashed 13-24 June.

Delving into centuries-old winter solstice rituals, Dark Mofo explores the links between ancient and contemporary mythology, humans and nature, religious and secular traditions,darkness and light, and birth, death and renewal.

Visitors and locals alike can embrace and explore major exhibitions at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), a public art playground at Dark Park and international musicians and artists performing around the city.

It is a heady whirlwind of festivities, and highlights for travellers often include the annual City of Hobart Dark Mofo Winter Feast on Hobart’s waterside docks, the ogoh-ogoh parade and burning on the solstice night, and the annual Nude Solstice Swim, where hundreds of brave souls plunge into the River Derwent at sunrise to welcome back the return of the light after the longest night.