An artist will be buried alive beneath the bitumen of a busy Hobart road in what will perhaps be one of the more disturbing offerings of Tasmania's Dark Mofo festival next month.

In 2016, Mr Parr spent 72 hours in an abandoned mental asylum for Dark Mofo. ( Supplied )

Mike Parr will be interred in a steel container beneath the middle lane of Macquarie Street. The road will be then resealed and cars will drive over the top of him for the next 72 hours.

But all festival goers will see is him disappear into his box at 9:00pm on June 14 and re-emerge three days later.

"One of the key points of this piece is the anxiety around the artist not being visible," curator Jarrod Rawlins said.

"It's obviously a contradiction when we have … a major performance piece for such a major festival where the artist is invisible."

Mr Parr will be housed in a steel container (4.5m x 1.7m x 2.2m) fitted with a fan-forced air supply.

Inside, the 73-year-old artist will meditate and draw.

He will have with him a sketchpad and pencils, a meditation stool, bedding and some water but no food.

Dark Mofo's creative director said "when Mike Parr asks to be buried under the streets of Hobart it's hard to say no". ( Mona/Dark Mofo/Remi Chauvin )

"He's very well practised at fasting — he's being doing it for 30 years," Mr Rawlins said.

But Mr Parr has never been buried underneath a major road before.

"Mike's tried to do this piece in a couple of other cities around the world and it has never got to the point of actually happening," Mr Rawlins said.

When Mr Parr's performance ends, his steel chamber and everything in it will be backfilled and the road will be resealed over it.

"Who knows — one day a future generation might end up digging it up and finding out what went on in there," Mr Rawlins said.

Isolation is an ongoing theme in Mike Parr's work. ( Mona/Dark Mofo/Remi Chauvin )

Performance reflects on colonisation of Tasmania

Mr Parr is no stranger to punishing himself in the name of art.

He has sewn his lips together, hacked at his prosthetic arm with an axe and regurgitated milk as part of his performance artwork.

That Mike Parr's "work will happen underground ... as everyday life continues above it, is no coincidence," Leigh Carmichael says. ( Mona/Dark Mofo/Remi Chauvin )

Ten years ago at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery he sat beneath a tilted stage for 36 hours to create an image of a disembodied head.

In 2016, he spent 72 hours at the abandoned Willow Court Asylum in New Norfolk in Tasmania for Dark Mofo.

Last year, his performance "Empty Ocean" involved 72 people aged about 70 years meditating on time, aging and isolation in the early hours of the morning on Bruny Island.

This year's piece, Underneath The Bitumen The Artist, will be his last for Mona's winter festival.

"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 creative director Leigh Carmichael said.

Mr Parr's head poked out of a stage for 36 hours at a previous exhibit in Hobart. ( TMAG )

"Underneath The Bitumen The Artist", Mr Parr's final work for the festival, is designed to memorialise the transportation of 75,000 British and Irish convicts to Tasmania and the near destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population.

"The fact that Mike Parr's work will happen underground, just out of sight, as everyday life continues above it, is clearly no coincidence," Mr Carmichael said.

"In my mind at least, this has already created the most poignant and profound statement imaginable."

"To my knowledge, it will be Tasmania's first monument referencing both the Black War and the convict system.

"It is a story that is not well known, but is ever-present, just beneath the surface of our contemporary culture."

Dark Mofo is known for pushing artistic boundaries and having controversial acts.

Last year the slaughter of a bull for a performance piece generated community outrage and protests.