MONA By Kirsten Galliott
The provocative museum has a host of new kid-friendly attractions.
Hobart
It’s fair to say that MONA (mona.net.au), the wildly subversive art museum on a bank of the Derwent, wasn’t conceived with kids in mind.
But why not? David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art has just the kind of installations that children – young and old – thrill at, from the famous Cloaca (Belgian artist Wim Delvoye’s intricately designed poo machine) to a waterfall of words commonly searched on Google (German artist Julius Popp’s Bit.fall).
Okay, there are some highly sexualised and sometimes confronting artworks but small children are easily distracted. And a day at MONA is an opportunity to push the boundaries of what art “should be”.
In the nine months that the museum closed during the pandemic, the art was reassessed and rehung, allowing for new works to come into the collection and old favourites to return. But for families, the biggest changes are outside the building. American artist Tom Otterness’s enormous bronze sculpture, Girls Rule, is a most playful playground. And the head-spinning maze House of Mirrors, which was created by Melbourne installation artists Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney and made its debut at Dark Mofo in 2016, is now on exhibition in the grounds.
There’s also a new burger bar, Dubsy’s, which serves everything from plant-based patties to wallaby and pork. Team your burger with loaded fries and grab a beanbag in the sun.
Of course, some things never change. There’s still live music on the lawn. You can grab a glass of Moorilla wine or Moo Brew. And on the ferry back, you can again choose to sit on a sheep before bedding down at the city’s new Mövenpick Hotel (all.accor.com).
It’s culture with a side of fun.