A festival from the equally iconic Mona – the Museum of Old and New Art – in Hobart, the museum’s owner David Walsh announced the retrospective end of the festival on Friday.
The 2024 edition, which took place in February and March, is to be the last.
“Mona Foma took us around the world,” Walsh wrote in a blog published on Mona’s website, explaining the end of the event. “But it ends here. Maybe the end started at COVID. Maybe it’s because the last festival was a poorly attended artistic triumph. But those aren’t the reasons I killed it.
“I know that we live for experience but, more and more, I seek permanence, a symbolic immortality.
“At Mona, I’m building this big thing, hopefully it’ll be a good thing, but it’s a costly thing. I’m addicted to building, and my addiction got out of hand. Some things have to go before I’m too far gone.
“Mona Foma is one of those things. It’s been magical, but the spell has worn off,” he wrote.
Mona’s winter festival, Dark Mofo, was also cancelled for 2024, in decision announced last September, although this has been described by organisers as a pause rather than the end of the festival.
Australia’s festival scene is having a bad run this year, with the usually sold out Splendour in the Grass also cancelled for this year last month, just six days after tickets went on sale.
