The Kookaburra Self-Relocation Project (WHOSLAUGHINGJACKASS)
site-specific performance, mixed textile objects, costumes and banners, 45-60 minutes.
Commissioned by Contemporary Art Tasmania (CAT) in partnership with MONA FOMA
Launceston, TAS, 17 - 19 January 2020
Nine performers carried protest banners during The Kookaburra Self-Relocation Project (WHOSLAUGHINGJACKASS), a site-specific performance that released loud laughter into public spaces during three consecutive mornings of the 2020 MONA FOMA festival in Launceston. Laughing Kookaburra was introduced into Tasmania and Western Australia by Acclimatisation Societies between 1881-1906. Their nineteenth-century name was Laughing Jackass. These same societies previously introduced deer, fox, trout and house sparrows. The WHOSLAUGHINGJACKASS project encompasses painting, installation, archival interventions, textiles, costumes, and performance and speculates on the history of nationalism through the transportation of kookaburras. It seeks to present an alternate nation-building narrative, albeit proving this was and always will be a construct.
Full interview and story about the project: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/releasing-laughter-kookaburra-guerilla-artwork-launches-mona-foma
