Dark Mofo announces bold 2026 program with Candela Capitán, Princess Nokia and more.

Geelong audiences are just a ferry away from midwinter madness.

The chills of midwinter are calling, as Dark Mofo 2026 unveils its adventurous and ambitious full program. For those in Geelong, accessing Tasmania’s most provocative arts festival has never been easier. The Spirit of Tasmania departs from North Shore, Geelong, delivering festivalgoers straight into Hobart, where a riot of art, performance, music, film, and ritual awaits from 11–22 June.

Organisers invite audiences to embrace the cold with a program designed to confront, mesmerise, and delight. “On land and sea, Dark Mofo 2026 will rage in cacophony and seek solace in silence,” says Artistic Director Chris Twite. “Boundary-pushing artists from all over the world will descend on Tasmania to nourish visitors hungry for challenge, discovery and distraction.”

Dark Mofo

When: 11 – 22 June 2026

Where:  Various Venues in Hobart

Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around the region here.

 

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Art + Performance: Provocation Across Land, Sea, and Spirit

The program spills beyond Hobart’s galleries and theatres, inhabiting warehouses, abandoned institutions, a former piano showroom, deconsecrated churches, The State Cinema—and even the Spirit of Tasmania V itself.

Among the highlights:

• SOLAS* by Candela Capitán (ESP) transforms dancers and computers into a living kaleidoscope of desire and technology.
• Stasis* by Ruben Bellinkx (BEL) sees men suspended in a ziggurat of tables, held aloft by their own teeth.
• Sculpt: Eye of the Duck* by Loris Gréaud (FRA), an elusive installation seen in full by fewer than 500 people worldwide.
• Kiyo Gutiérrez (MEX) stages harrowing performances confronting the violence of borders.

Visitors aboard the Spirit of Tasmania V will also encounter Chunxiao Qu’s illuminated installation There’s Nothing Left to Pray For*, a meditation on grief and hope, while Lolo & Sosaku’s robotic dogs roam industrial landscapes in Perros Chaos (ARG/JPN).

Local and national voices resonate alongside international work. Hayley Millar Baker calls ancestors near in Eternity the Butterfly, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah manifests childhood fears in The Dogs, and Jacob Leary, Dylan Sheridan, and Sean O’Connell craft soundscapes that transform industrial spaces.

Dark Mofo Films rounds out the program with a spectrum from Titane and Uncut Gems to Australian classics Razorback and The Cars That Ate Paris.

Music: Global Sounds, From Hyperpop to Black Metal

Music at Dark Mofo ranges from underground hip-hop to immersive noise, electronic, and extreme metal. Notable acts include:

• Princess Nokia* (USA), New York hip-hop at its fiercest.
• Power Trip* (USA), Texas thrash metal.
• Sega Bodega* (GBR), AV-driven electronic innovation.
• Chat Pile (USA), sludgy noise rock.
• Purity Ring (CAN), lush, euphoric electropop.

Festival nights offer boundary-pushing soundscapes: Xiu Xiu performs Eraserhead, Loscil interprets wildfire devastation, and Amby Downs traces feral deer through harmonic drones. Local talent like Miss Kaninna and Baker Boy bring First Nations voices and ancestral power to the fore.

Metal fans can lose themselves in Hymns to the Dead*, curated by Tassie vocalist Chalky, with symphonic gothic and brutal death metal from global acts like Tiamat, Negative Plane, and Emasculator.

 

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Rituals: Winter Feast, Night Mass, Ogoh-Ogoh, Nude Solstice Swim

Dark Mofo’s annual rites return with immersive communal experience. The Winter Feast on Princes Wharf and Salamanca Lawns welcomes Michelin-starred Italian chef Floriano Pelligrino paired with Tasmania’s Roberto Mele.

Night Mass reshapes the Hobart CBD into a sprawling, nocturnal celebration of sound and performance. The Ogoh-Ogoh ritual culminates on 21 June as a fire consumes the Pedra Branca Skink, purging collective fears. Finally, the Nude Solstice Swim at Long Beach, Sandy Bay, closes the festival on 22 June, marking the end of the longest night of the year.

MONA: Monumental, Mysterious, and New

Upriver, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) pulses with innovation. Highlights include:

• Sex + Death Day Club, an underground nocturnal experience.
• Julian Charrière’s Hard Core, with sculptures in coal, lava, molten computers, onyx, and obsidian. His permanent installation Breathe releases oxygen molecules trapped in iron ore.
• Yhonnie Scarce’s In Absence, a nine-metre-high timber tower adorned with 1,600 hand-blown black glass yams.
• Ryoji Ikeda’s spectra, piercing the Tasmanian night sky with light.

MONA promises more new art than any year since 2017, offering festivalgoers the full Dark Mofo immersion.

For Geelong audiences, attending Dark Mofo 2026 is a matter of stepping aboard the Spirit of Tasmania V at North Shore, leaving the mainland behind and plunging into a festival where art, music, and ritual collide in midwinter splendour.

Dark Mofo 2026 promises to challenge, delight, and mesmerise—this year, Geelong is closer than ever to the action.

Tickets for subscribers go on sale at 10am, Wednesday 1 April AEDT, and to the general public from midday. Full program and subscription details are available here.