Arts festival Dark Mofo has cancelled plans to soak a British flag in the blood of First Nations people after days of backlash from the community.
The project was part of an arts piece by controversial Spanish artist Santiago Sierra entitled Union Flag, which was announced on Friday evening as one of the major acts at this year’s festival.
As part of the announcement, Dark Mofo called for expressions of interest for any First Nations people who had been colonised by the British Empire.
However, after a huge amount of backlash from the community, Dark Mofo’s artistic director Leigh Carmichael pulled the plug on the project, asserting that he had “made a mistake.”
“We’ve heard the community’s response to Santiago Sierra’s Union Flag. In the end the hurt that will be caused by proceeding isn’t worth it,” he said in a statement on Facebook on Tuesday.
“We made a mistake, and take full responsibility. The project will be cancelled.
We’ve heard the community’s response to Santiago Sierra’s Union Flag. In the end the hurt that will be caused by…
Posted by Dark Mofo on Monday, March 22, 2021
The move comes after Carmichael defended the project earlier in the week, asserting that they’d received a significant amount of interest and were “overwhelmed with responses.”
“Self-expression is a fundamental human right, and we support artists to make and present work regardless of their nationality or cultural background,” he said.
“It’s not surprising that the atrocities committed as a result of colonising nations continue to haunt us.”
However, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Sierra has been absolutely ripped to shreds for his work, with past works including essentially making a bootleg gas chamber at a synagogue in Germany.
