MONA amazing!

MONA deserves its own post, it is amazing. First I will tell you the story of MONA as it was told to me by our lovely friend and land lady for the moment.

MONA is an art museum. It has old and new art. MONA stands for Museum of Old and New Art. Pretty self explanatory you would think.

Then Sarah says that it is a private collection of Art. It is owned by 'David', he is a mathematician and pays people to use his money to gamble for him and make money. Apparently he has an algorithm that makes him lots of cash.

David decided to give back to his home town of Hobart and spent approx. $83 Million on his museum.

We decided it was worth a look on Sarah's recommendation.

It was very busy when we arrived in the poorer suburbs of Hobart where the museum is situated. We parked and as we walked into the park area it is a sea of hot pink. There were markets set up and the first one had above it the head of what looked like a big pink worm, like the jumping worm you see at the show.

Each market stall is then a segment of this worm with feet to hold down the 'legs'. It was fantastic.

There were hot pink bean bags set up on a grassy hill to sit in and there was a band playing. Fantastic.
We ate Paella on the bean bags and soaked in the atmosphere.

We entered the museum. Cost was $20 an adult, $10 for students (us), and free for Tasmanians. We received a free Ipod touch that would take us through the museum and told us about each art work as we stood near it. On the Ipod we could log if we liked or disliked a installation and it would tell us stats of how many others felt the same as us.

The Ipod also told us not only the background of an artist or art work (called the 'wanky bit') but shared David and the curators thoughts on the work. It was just so excellent.

Highlights:
# The blank library; a room that is set out just like a library but all the books are white and blank. Mark loved this one.

# The stomaches that took up a whole room and were machines that were 'fed' twice a day. The food passed through 5 chambers that reproduced what the human stomach does and then...you guessed it...iot produced poo! It stank.

Burke and Wills painting which I will put up for you later. It shows B and W having a party in the aussie bush, not lost at all! It depicts the famous political incident when Hawke accused Keating of calling Australia the 'ass end of the universe'. You will see how it is depicted when I put the pic up.

Other highlights were a fat car to depict consumerism, a waterfall that made words and the Egyptian artefacts.

MONA is one of the top art museums in the world and it is worth a visit if you are in Hobart. We enjoyed it. It really did blow my mind.

Now we are preparing for the overland track, a 67km hike. Very excited.

Mum and Dad if you do not hear from us by Saturday...call the Cradle Mt Visitor Info Centre.

Love Krystal