A 48,000-Tonne Ship, a Huge Whip and Cyberpunk Kinetic Sculptures: Dark Mofo’s 2026 Program Is Here

Experience secret performances in hidden rooms at Night Mass. Indulge in the gothic, candlelit Winter Feast. Watch (or join in) the thousands of revellers at the infamous Nude Solstice Swim. Catch lauded, up-and-coming, or underground acts and theatre shows. And embrace those random events that catch you off guard and just can’t be described.

Over the last 13 years, Dark Mofo has become synonymous with the experiential, the alternative, the artistic and the downright weird. And this year’s festival doubles down on its roots, with large-scale art, feasting, light and noise.

For two weeks, a wild nocturnal program of art, music and performance takes over the city, from its theatres and galleries, to an empty piano warehouse and a deconsecrated church, to the grounds of Mona itself up the river in Berriedale. Additional works will appear in Launceston, three hours’ drive north, and in an as-yet undisclosed Tasmanian town.

Must-do rituals

First-time visitors shouldn’t miss the festival’s annual calendar highlights; 2026 sees a new edition of the pagan-inspired, nightly long-table Winter Feast, lit by fire and neon. This year’s star is Italian chef Floriano Pellegrino, who helms the Michelin-starred Bros’ in Lecce, Puglia, alongside Roberto Mele of Hobart’s slow bakery Mama. And the annual Night Mass bacchanalia is set to return over four nights, offering a late-night labyrinth of bars, installations, hidden stages and a huge line-up of musical guests – the full list of which will only be revealed after the festival.

Sticking to annual traditions, the festival closes with the evening parade and burning of the Ogoh-Ogoh, this year a giant effigy of Tasmania’s endemic Pedra Branca skink, followed by the next morning’s Nude Solstice Swim in Sandy Bay, a cathartic ritual to see off the longest night of the year.

Immersive experiences

By the harbour, Dark Park will again be at the centre of the action: a gathering place where you can roam among giant artworks between concerts and performances, with bars, firepits and a stage for local bands. This year, a 48,000-tonne ship – Spirit of Tasmania V – is moored at the park. The cavernous space will stage installations like Argentine Japanese duo Lolo & Sosaku’s junkyard nightmare Perros Chaos, prowled by robotic dogs, while elsewhere in Dark Park, you can find Spanish artist Monica Bonvicini’s Breathing, a huge whip of leather belts that sweeps the floor, suspended from a pneumatic system in the ceiling.

Boris Acket, a Dutch artist and composer who builds self-contained worlds from light and sound, presents a brand-new commission: Soundscape, a space for surrender, blurring the line between gallery and musical experience. There are also two neon-fabricated, text-based sculptures by Melbourne-based Chinese poet Chunxiao Qu, and APEX, a video work by legendary African American artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa featuring what he calls “spooky entanglements”.

Elsewhere in the city, you can see the Australian debuts of leading international artists. Five dancers in pink lycra and thigh-high boots twist and gyrate in front of five laptops in Spanish dancer and choreographer Candela Capitán’s Solas: a comment on the hollow allure of automated sex and the commodification of women’s bodies. In Kiyo Gutiérrez’s Un muro que parte el cuerpo en dos (A wall that breaks the body in two), a wall of bricks and mortar is erected across the Mexican artist’s body, cracking and rippling with her breath.

Lolo & Sosaku appear again with Êlectrôn 45Cc L=20nm, W20nm, a dystopian, cyberpunk realm that plays host to their industrial soundscape, played live with a welding technician and menacing kinetic sculptures. And each morning, you can line up at the box office for tickets to be “exfiltrated” for a solo viewing of Loris Gréaud’s extremely hard-to-see Sculpt, a sprawling surreal feature shot across seven continents starring Willem Dafoe.

For the music lovers

The festival’s fascinating, cutting-edge music program includes a swag of exclusives, from the punkish, confessional indie rap of Afro-Nuyorican artist Princess Nokia to the blissful, cinematic experiments of post-classical composer, pianist and producer Kelly Moran. From deeper in left field, flamboyant Kenyan vocalist Lord Spikeheart snarls, shrieks and raps over a soundtrack veering from grindcore and death metal to hip-hop and trance. US thrash titans Power Trip preview their first studio album in almost a decade, while legendary Japanese guitarist Kawabata Makoto leads an intense psychedelic improvisation as “cosmic translator” for his longstanding collective, Acid Mothers Temple.

Enter the uncanny valley with Headache, a project produced by Frank Ocean, Dean Blunt and Travis Scott collaborator Vegyn, with lyrics – by obscure, possibly fictional poet Francis Hornsby Clark – voiced entirely by an AI. Composer, curator and Room 40 label head Lawrence English returns with his Borderlands AV series: this year, cult Californian duo Xiu Xiu score David Lynch’s Eraserhead live, incorporating homemade instruments, field recordings and electrical interference, while ambient composer Loscil presents a piece inspired by the wildfire-ruined landscapes of his native British Columbia. Elsewhere, Irish Chilean producer Sega Bodega – who has worked with Bjork and Rosalia, Arca, Oklou and more – plays unreleased tracks as part of Unadulter8, a surrealist, hyper-modern AV show conceived in partnership with visual artist Total Emotional Awareness.

Appearing alongside this huge line-up of one-offs is outré hip-hop star Danny Brown, London art rockers Dry Cleaning, Detroit’s pummelling Protomartyr, LA noise-rap legends clipping, all-women death metal act Emasculator and eviscerating noise rockers Chat Pile. A local contingent, headed by Yolngu rapper Baker Boy and Melbourne’s new international breakout Folk Bitch Trio, takes over Launceston’s Albert Hall. lutruwita’s own rising star Miss Kaninna, meanwhile, is performing at Altar Bar.

A visit to Mona

During daylight hours, Mona again plays host to the Sex & Death Day Club, a bar and performance space in the bowels of the museum, as well as a new exhibition by French Swiss artist Julian Charrière. Inspired by his expeditions to remote, prehistoric landscapes, including volcanoes, icebergs and seabeds, Hard Core explores “deep time” through film, installation, sculpture and photography. It includes a new permanent installation, Breathe, built into the museum’s foundations, which uses a scientific process to release oxygen molecules that have been trapped in banded iron ore for around 2.4 billion years. Its viewers will breathe some of the first oxygen molecules ever to have appeared on Earth.

Dark Mofo runs from June 11 to 22, 2026. Tickets go on sale to subscribers from 10am Wednesday April 1, and to all comers from midday. Subscribe for updates.

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