(MENAFN- Gulf Times) An Australian performance artist will be buried alive in a container under a city street for three days next month to make a statement about Tasmania's 'genocidal colonial past under the British while an art festival goes on above his head.
Mike Parr will stay in the container under Tasmania's capital city, Hobart, for the annual Dark Mofo festival, organisers wrote in a statement.
Parr will be lowered into the container below Macquarie Street on June 14 with a sketchpad, pencils, water, bedding and a meditation stool.
Press materials did not say if he would have illumination or how he would get air.
The 4.5m-long container will be buried just a few inches under the surface, and the road will then be returned to normal use for the period of the installation, Dark Mofo said.
Signs at the site will let people know Parr is just below their feet.
'The anxiety of the artist's disappearance is the point of the piece, according to organisers.
The 73-year-old wants to acknowledge violence in the 19th century, particularly the near-total destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population after the arrival of 75,000 British and Irish convicts.
'This work was conceived to memorialise the victims of 20th century totalitarian violence in all of its ideological forms, including the shadow cast by the genocidal violence of 19th century British colonialism in Australia, according to a statement on the festival website.
'We try to present new artists each year, but when Mike Parr asks to be buried under the streets of Hobart, it's hard to say no, Dark Mofo's creative director Leigh Carmichael said.
'The fact that [his] work will happen underground, just out of sight, as everyday life continues above it, is clearly no coincidence, Carmichael added.
After Parr emerges from the container, concrete will be poured into the vessel to preserve it as a time capsule for the future.
Dark Mofo is produced by Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art, and is no stranger to headline-making performances.
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