‘At the far edge of an island at the bottom of the world, a road winds into the mountains.’ It’s the perfect opening line for The Unconformity – a festival inseparable from its place. Getting there is half the experience: the four-hour drive from Hobart or Launceston to the remote west coast of lutruwita/Tasmania slows you down, tuning your senses into the landscape ahead.
Fittingly, the festival begins with Unrise – a steep dawn hike up Mt Owen through land regenerating from years of copper mining-induced acid rain. At the summit, a semaphore signal delivers a Welcome to Country in the revived language of palawa kani, sent from Penhgara – the historic home of the Mt Lyell Mine manager. Using handmade flags dyed with native botanicals, the message moves from station to station and then out to the landscape. It is the project of Margaret Woodward and Justy Phillips, and it is smart, poetic and incredibly moving.
Participation runs through everything here. Visitors pen their own semaphore messages, string charms with jeweller Emma Bugg, or limber up for a hilariously earnest ‘physie’ class with the School of Physical Culture. There are few tickets, few barriers – just a sense of shared adventure.
The Unconformity: makes you feel a local
The weather is ever present, always reminding you of where you are. It only adds to the occasion.
Born from the Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival (established in 2009 by founding Artistic Director Travis Tiddy), The Unconformity re-emerged in 2016 with a new edge – experimental, resilient, and resolutely place-based. It’s worked. In 2023, it was the only festival to receive multi-year Federal funding (the major festivals supported by Festivals Australia notwithstanding).
This year’s program, led by Californian-born Artistic Director Loren Kronemyer and CEO Louisa Gordon (both with Mona Foma roots), continues that legacy. Every work originates from this place – through artist residencies – so connections run deep. There’s no “fly-in” art here, and that long tail of the festival is felt by audiences.
Local resident and former mine electrician David Fitzpatrick exemplifies that bond. His one-on-one drawing sessions create ‘psychic portraits’, revealing the human face of this resilient town.
Highlights at The Unconformity
Another subtle, yet incredibly powerful project is Bridget Baskerville’s Overflow, a kinetic sculpture that suspends metal strips into the Queen River, their slow transformation because of the acidic waters mirroring the landscape’s eco-history. Nearby, metal panels with beautiful patinas etched by the toxic water source bring past and present together. It is a subtle yet extremely poignant piece.
It is presented in the local Lions Club shed, one of many projects utilising community buildings from the library to empty shops and vacated pubs, which further imprints art on the DNA of this place.
This is most spectacularly achieved by choreographer/artist Luke George‘s Tasmanian premiere of Fell unfolding in a working saw mill beneath a forested mountain. Developed during a residency in 2022, the 45-minute performance starts with George asking volunteers to help carry a log equalling his body weight into the mill, before suspending it – and himself – using ropes and carabiners. It’s a visually simple yet physically and conceptually complex piece. It is transfixing.
Read: Fell review: Luke George’s performance leaves you hanging
Meanwhile, Panjat Hujan (“Climbing the Rain”) by Tony Yap blends Sulawesi shamanism with contemporary dance in a haze of smoke and light in the Scout Hall – mysterious, trance-like, slightly frenetic, physically demanding and captivating.
Kronemyer has hitched the festival to an Asialink exchange program allowing Yap and artist Arif Furqan to develop and present work, again reiterating the ambition of this remote festival and how its centring of knowledge sharing on multiple levels.
Quirky, clever and genuine experiences define The Unconformity
Jessee Lee Johns’ Commonwealth of New Bayswater might be the festival’s quirkiest gem – a micro-nation built in a side alley, complete with tourist visas, its own currency, and a ramshackle Utopian Workers Club serving beer.
Johns has handcrafted his world from scavenged materials, including the beautifully constructed CIOMA (the Contemporary Institute of Modern Art), which showcases citizen-made works created at Johns’ ‘Content Mine’, turning corroded metal elements into artistic assemblages.
Equally unmissable is Jewelled Nights, an immersive theatre work about the School of Physical Culture, a hilarious, gender-twisting homage to Tasmanian icon Marie Bjelke Petersen, delivered with camp theatrical flair by Constance ARI (Jacqueline Dortmans, HK Vermeulen, Arafura Scott and Gabrielle Cayoun).
Rounding out the four-day festival are The Unconformity Art Trail; a platform for talks at Moonland; a fabulous exhibition at Print West; and The Unconformity’s signature program of music on Crib Road, which is transformed by fairy lights, open fires and food trucks. Walkability is a key factor of this event’s success.
The old Mt Lyell Mining Company motto was, ‘We find a way or we make it.’ The Unconformity takes that ambition and gives it a contemporary stamp – transforming endurance into art and remoteness into community. It lingers long after you leave, and has you drumming your fingers counting down until the next edition.
The Unconformity, Queenstown, Tasmania was presented from 16-19 October 2025.
The writer visited Queenstown as a guest of The Unconformity.
