MONA FOMA, Hoabrt’s festival centring around the MONA gallery, has announced plans to relocate to Launceston if government funding comes through.
As ABC report, Violent Femmes’ Brian Ritchie who is also the curator of the festival announced that they have already achieved what they set out to do in Hobart with the festival.
“The festival’s original 10-year plan – to change the culture in Hobart – has come to fruition ahead of schedule,” he said.
“We’d like to embark upon a new creative journey – to relocate to Launceston in search of new challenges, new collaborations, fresh partnerships and novel creative models.”
They are asking for government funding to assist with the move and will wait for that before any plans are confirmed.
“We want to make it bigger, better, more creative, more diverse and more famous [and by famous we mean infamous],” Ritchie added.
Gallery owner David Walsh is also planning to expand MONA with a, “172-room, five-star hotel”, to be known as HOMO. It’s expected to take three years to build.
Every year Hobart also hosts the Dark Mofo festival which this year notched-up a record attendance with 427,000 coming through. It looks as if that’s set to remain in Hobart.
Earlier this year, MONA FOMA also had a successful 2017 event with a lineup that included Peaches and Moses Sumney.
