Dark Mofo festival is facing backlash for asking “First Nations peoples from territories colonised by the British Empire” to donate their blood as part of an art performance piece.
The project, Union Flag, by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, proposes that the Union Jack be immersed in the donated blood of 83 First Nations people. Sierra published an open letter, offering to fly one randomly selected participant from each colonised country — like Aotearoa, Fiji and Canada — to donate a small amount of blood at a Hobart medical facility.
“The First Nations people of Australia suffered enormously and brutally from British colonialism,” Sierra writes. “The intent of this project is against colonialism and a denouncement of the pain and destruction it has caused the First Nations people, devastating entire cultures and civilisations.”
Dark Mofo is copping heat after sharing a social media post about the project, featuring an image with emblazoned with the call out “we want your blood” over a red background.
Musicians Briggs and Kira Puru, who are of Indigenous Australian and Māori descent, took to Instagram to criticise the project. “We already gave enough blood,” Briggs wrote in a comment.
Whilst Puru mused that she thought the Dark Mofo “would be better than that”.
“What a way to reveal that there are no First Nations folks in your curatorial/consulting teams,” Puru continued. “White people further capitalising on the literal blood of First Nations people. Are you fucking kidding?”
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s Nala Mansell said the performance was “a great opportunity to raise awareness of the massacres” of First Nations people, but took umbrage with the festival’s request for Indigenous blood.
“I think Aboriginal people have had a lot of blood spilt over the last 200 years,” she said. “I understand the idea of blood on the flag, but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to be calling for Aboriginal people to be donating blood when we have already had enough blood spilt as it is.
“I just think there might be other ways of signifying the blood that was spilt without having to ask Aboriginal people to do so.”
Leigh Carmichael, creative director of Dark Mofo, told The Australian that the proposed plan to use the Union Jack flag caused a schism within the Dark Mofo curatorial team.
“We’ve been debating and arguing about it for a year now and there are some really strong views within my team that we shouldn’t be proceeding,” Carmichael says. “It’s a work that could be seen as difficult from the left and the right so we find ourselves in the middle – which is a really good place for a festival to be.
“I feel it’s good art when it’s difficult.”
Previous iterations of Dark Mofo have incited equal parts criticism and praise for provocative, controversial art.
In 2017, Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch executed a controversial performance that saw participants smear themselves in the bloody entrails of a slaughtered bull. Then in 2018, performance artist Mike Parr was buried under the bitumen of a Hobart road for three days.
