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Eight weird and wonderful things I experienced during Mona Foma 2021

Mona Foma's annual return had some very high expectations to meet

Written by
Rushani Epa
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Following the calamity that was 2020 it’s safe to say that I was giddy to head to Tassie for Mona Foma. The summer music, art and culture festival is produced by Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art and makes its annual appearance in Hobart and Launceston. I packed my carry-on and boarded a flight to Hobart for a weekend of the weird and the wild.

1. Templo Restaurant

This isn’t technically a Mona Foma stop, but Templo Restaurant ought to be on your itinerary every time you come to Hobart. You never know what you’re going to get thanks to the seasonal menu brimming with Italian-inspired dishes. I settled down for the Chef’s Course menu at a tiny table for one and was treated to thick slices of sourdough drenched in extra-virgin olive oil and topped with sea salt flakes. Bread is the king of all starters, so this was fitting. My favourite course might have been the saltfish fritter on a bed of aioli, pickled radish and gnocco fritto (fried gnocchi) with mortadella and capocollo. I could go in depth about each dish, but as this is meant to be about Mona Foma I’ll move on.

2. Second Echo Ensemble: Let Me Dry Your Eyes

My first Mona Foma show for the year did not disappoint. 'Let Me Dry Your Eyes' took me to the now-defunct Beaumaris Zoo, which was previously run by eccentric socialite Mary Grant Roberts, who reportedly rode her elephant into town in the early 1900s. It also housed the last living Tasmanian tiger in captivity. 

When I arrived I was handed fake binoculars constructed out of cardboard toilet paper rolls and fluorescent pink string, which I somehow expected to work. A troupe of artists with diverse abilities performed the tragic story of a bird and whale in love – if you think about the logistics of that relationship, it wasn't destined to work. Various locations of the old zoo were used to show the bird and whale in their respective habitats, with both pining for the other through interpretive dance, against the live background sounds of double bass and a violin. 

3. Loren Kronemyer: After Erika Eiffel

'After Erika Eiffel' was an immersive exhibition allowing me and a bunch of other amateurs to try our hands at archery. The exhibition takes its name from former pilot, two-time archery world champion and martial arts champion Erika Eiffel. She identifies as having a sexual orientation towards physical objects and attributes her success to her relationship with her bow. She declared herself to be married to the Eiffel Tower (hence her surname) and said she shared a 20-year relationship with the Berlin Wall. 

Her story was plastered across targets in an open field at the Archery Club, and the flirtatious hostess who gave us our preliminary lesson wore a diamante choker branded with 'SICKO' and mesmerised us with her sexual innuendo. I didn’t hit a single target, and the feeling of walking into an open field to retrieve my bow while others shot around me wasn’t one I’ll soon forget. I walked away proudly brandishing my bow burn and a warm belly full of post-archery limoncello. 

4. Mofo Sessions at Mona

It wouldn’t be Mona Foma without a party. The Mofo Sessions took place on Mona’s lawn, with yellow mats spaced out for social distancing purposes. Three bands took to the stage each night, and festival director Brian Ritchie (Violent Femmes) formed jazz group United States of Amnesia specifically for the festival. The night I went crowds rushed to the front to dance to the sounds of the Slag Queens and Slaughterhäus Surf Cult, and pop-up bars and food trucks ensured everyone was well fed and watered.

5. Faro Restaurant

This is another must-visit if you head to Mona. Award-winning bar and restaurant Faro offers share plates and art to order off the menu. Between courses I headed to the famed 'Unseen Seen' exhibition by James Turrell, where I lay on a day bed staring at strobe lights with a belly full of squid ink congee with mussels and pipis, washed down with Moorilla Estate’s 2017 Muse Chardonnay (Mona's own winery). I found it strangely calming, and I was whisked away to James Turrell’s 'Event Horizon' large-scale light work after my last bite of brown butter cake with strawberry gelato. The restaurant is an incredible experience and boasts views of the water, and live bands paraded in and out of the place during my lunch. Even the toilet included a personal musical performance. It’s not as crude as it sounds.

6. Big Hart: Zinc 

Australian arts and social-justice company Big Hart put on a display for lovers of analogue music. Sounds were recorded in Hobart’s beloved and still-functioning zinc factory, Zinc Works, and produced into songs. The result? Thirty minutes of experimental, minimal and industrial techno recordings. The sound filled a warehouse room within the factory, while projections that matched the sounds lit up the room.

7. The Masque of Red Death

This play left me in absolute awe. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra choir filled St David’s Cathedral for a musical take on Edgar Allan Poe's famed gothic fable The Masque of the Red Death.

The story itself is based on a blood plague that sweeps through Italy, known as the Red Death, as a gregarious duke and his friends party in an abbey while the streets outside pile up with the bodies of the poor. It was all backed by an organ, synth and percussion, featured a ditty from Sesame Street and singers adorned in grotesque, intestine-like masks. It was strange, theatrical and fascinating, basically all things Mona Foma.

8. Listen Deeply at Theatre Royal

Held at the Theatre Royal, Listen Deeply was one of the more moving, poignant exhibitions at Mona Foma. Three video installations were cast in different spaces. In Dead Tongue, Bidjara/Kunja artist Dr Christian Thompson sang in his native tongue of Bidjara while a video of two British flags flew out of the corners of his mouth, a response to David Bowie’s antiracist Let’s Dance film clip. The Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS York Band conch shell sextet rehearsed a piece by an Oglála Lakȟóta composer in Althea Thauberger and Kite’s Battle Cry (Gift to the Shell Ensemble). But Angelica Mesiti stole the show with her southern Italian mourning tribute to Italian prisoners at the Ear of Dionysus, an ancient ear-shaped cave in Syracuse, Italy.

You don't have to travel to Tasmania to see some cool art – here are our favourite exhibitions in Melbourne this month.

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