Mid-Winter festival put on by MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, at Austin's Ferry, a northern suburb of Hobart. This year was the third. It's the darkest part of the year, so the theme is a contrast between dark and light, with fire being a fairly constant theme ( cos we Hobartians wouldn't go out en masse if there weren't plenty of warmth to crown around. The culmination is the traditional mid-winter dip which some (fanatics) are fond of (me not being among those in this category). People now come from Sydney to be part of it, and the festival has spread to take in many venues, with theatre, performance, light shows, sculpture and whatever. There were beams of light pulsating with the heart-beat of the person at the controls, warehouses with laser-light forms picking out dry-ice mist, an outdoor gin parlour ringed with birch branches lit to look like a Northern square with snow. There was a winter feast with some pretty fine food ( at fairly high prices, too). There were fire-twirlers, and great geysers of lit gas like synchronised volcanoes flaring into the air. Inside warehouses, and out, there was music and entertainment.