Fears are written and purged, fed to the Ogoh Ogoh - a demon effigy derived from a Balinese Hindu community purification ritual and crafted by Balinese artists. On the final day, it is dragged through the streets and hoisted onto the pyre; a giant weeping willow , with two hundred thousand firecracker leaves. 
 

Willows hold ancient roots in mourning and death. Firecrackers were the first fireworks created - their purpose to scare away demons - and each explosion represents a species going extinct in the last two years, visualised as an explosion instead of silence. 

The flames burn our fears, on the shortest day of the year.  
 

Nipaluna's ancient shoreline is called back to the surface, in a ritual of fire and luwuree smoke. Buried beneath tonnes of rock and debris in what is now Macquarie Point, the rivulet met the river timtumili minanya (derwent river) - an important gathering place. After the invasion, the site was later filled in and became an industrial site including many years as a railway depot where oil and diesel were routinely dumped into the ground. 

This Bitter Earth began each night with Palawa artist Caleb Nichols-Mansell playing clapsticks, blowing luwuree smoke and singing to Country, before lighting the ripples which represented the freshwater from kunanyi (mt wellington) mixing with the saltwater of timtumili minanya

Caleb sat beneath the dead tree in the heat and smoke, calling back to Country in sorrow and in hope. With Caleb unable to be participate in the final days due to personal reasons, Alex sat silently in his place, to a recording of Caleb's clapsticks. 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

We acknowledge the power of timtumili minanya (Derwent River) and the role it plays in the lives and culture of the Palawa People.  Sovereignty was never ceded.

Fears are written and purged, fed to the Ogoh Ogoh - a demon effigy derived from a Balinese Hindu community purification ritual and crafted by Balinese artists. On the final day, it is dragged through the streets and hoisted onto the pyre; a sunken altar representing the four winds, elements, directions. 
 

A twelve metre high cascade of fire bathes the Ogoh, before flames slowly consume the sinking pyre and the Ogoh - destroying our fears. 

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Fears are written and purged, fed to the Ogoh Ogoh - a demon effigy derived from a Balinese Hindu community purification ritual and crafted by Balinese artists. On the final day, it is dragged through the streets and hoisted onto the pyre. The owl's spirit appears in the sky and descends to destroy itself. "We sow the seeds of our own destruction" - Euripides. 
 

Fears are written and purged, fed to the Ogoh Ogoh - a demon effigy derived from a Balinese Hindu community purification ritual and crafted by Balinese artists. On the final day, it is dragged through the streets and manualy hoisted onto the pyre by a team of pyrotechnicians using human powered winches inspired by Davinci's lifting machines. 
 

Bear your loved one’s ashes to the river where they are placed inside a handcrafted firework. Then launched into the night sky, punctuating the dark with a blazing reminder that all lives burn bright, before returning to the night.

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STORY HERE

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2021, 2022
nipaluna / Hobart Waterfront, Tasmania

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

We acknowledge the power of timtumili minanya (Derwent River) and the role it plays in the lives and culture of the Palawa People. 

The Muwinina (Mu-wi-nee-na) People occupied the nipaluna/Hobart side of the river, and the Mumirimina (mu-ma-ri-mi-na) people occupied the Eastern Shore of timtumili minanya, who were a band of the Oyster Bay Nation (East Coast of Tasmania). 

It is understood that there are no living descendants of these groups alive today, and we acknowledge and share in the sorrow of this great loss. 

We acknowledge the significance of cremation in Palawa customs.

We offer our deep respects to the Palawa People, and Elders, and our thanks for the support and honour of together creating this ritual above timtumili minanya. 

Sovereignty was never ceded.

Pyrotechnic spectacle. The longest night of the year.

An experimental percussion score transposed from London into a pyrotechnic symphony in nipaluna/Hobart, inspired by Dante’s Inferno and other concepts of chaos and crisis.

A collaboration between pyro artist Alex Podger, London-based drummer Gareth Brown, music producer Benjamin Yellowitz, and Stuart Bensley from Howard & Sons Fireworks.

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June 21, 2021 
nipaluna / Hobart Waterfront, Tasmania

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www.darkmofo.net.au

"These fires were burning all over the countryside, and each of them, even the most humble, had to be fed. The fire of the poet, of the teacher, of the carpenter. But among those living fires, how many closed windows there were, how many dead stars, fires that gave off no light for lack of nourishment" - Antoine De Saint Exupery

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One thousand fire tins arranged as a crossroads, one entrance with three exits. 

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On the final night, the Ogoh Ogoh was sacrificed on a twenty metre spider web of fire and smoke.

Flames leap from the wings in the Dies Irae, as we journey through anger and hurt to freedom. Two thousand red prayer candles light the orchestra, giant rusted candelabras burn with bright flames and firework stars burst cathartically in the sky above us.