Museum of Old and New Art (Mona)

Shock value

Hedonism, provocation and the unexpected reigns at this one-of-a-kind museum of ideas.

“What you’re going to experience is a show that won’t look like anything we’ve done at Mona before,” says Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art curator Jarrod Rawlins, speaking about the interactive Mine by New Zealand artist Simon Denny. Two years in the making, this exhibition utilises technology unlike any Australian institution has before: Denny has shrunk his show onto a screen, transforming the gallery into an augmented-reality board game. In general art-speak, you’d say that Mine looks down the rabbit hole of data and mineral mining, playing with ideas of automation, ethics, technology, greed and power – but there’s a surprise catch you’ll have to see Mine to believe.

Nothing at Mona is ever as it seems, even if you’ve been told what to expect. “We change our own expectations because we can’t rest on our own news,” says Rawlins, meaning there is always a risk and a sense of the unknown in anything undertaken in Mona’s tunnels. Mine is running alongside Eat the Problem, by Kirsha Kaechele, a bacchanalian performance feast serving up introduced species to bold diners. The exhibition supports the launch of Kaechele’s book of the same name, which features ‘recipes’, both real and surreal, using invasive species along with thoughts from chefs and philosophers.

So what else can you expect when visiting this lair-like subterranean home of Australia’s most provocative art? An experience that is more like going on an intellectual thrill ride than strolling around an art gallery.

Eat the Problem is showing at Mona until 2 September and Mine runs until 13 April 2020. Visit mona.net.au.