MONA (The Museum of Old and New Art)

Since the MONA opened in 2011, it has become Tasmania’s top tourist destination. The museum is described by its controversial owner as a secular temple dedicated to sex and death. It features: “racks of rotting cow carcasses; the remains of a suicide bomber cast in chocolate; a lavatory in which, through a system of mirrors and binoculars, you can view your own anus; a large, reeking machine that replicates the human digestive system, turning food into feces, which it excretes daily.” (The New Yorker)

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However you feel about such art, MONA has helped put Hobart on the map, with Lonely Planet naming the city as one of the world’s top ten to visit in 2013, driven in part by MONA’s presence. John Kaldor, a member of the International Committee of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, said that “MONA has been a watershed in the way that art is understood by the general public.”

Museum entrance is free to Tasmanians but overseas visitors pay a fee. The owner, David Walsh, said that he’s committed to keeping it free for Tasmanians because as a child he visited the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery and it changed his life.

As outsiders, we may view Tasmania as this unblemished Eden full of enchantment; we admire the Tassies for their commitment to protect the land; and we will find ourselves processing ideas on how to get citizenship into this paradise.

But the island also has this $75 million museum that the owner calls a “subversive adult Disneyland.” This museum is the voice of Tasmania projecting another image to the world. The people want to say it’s not just the day-to-day rhythm of nature that drives their lives, but it’s also about wanting to join in the world’s cultural conversation — and leading it.

I’m looking forward to getting under the skin of Tassies when I arrive.

-Haiy

References:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/21/tasmanian-devil http://travel.cnn.com/sydney/visit/mona-worlds-most-far-out-museum-519376