Museum of Old and New Art

While we were in Hobart during the school holidays we decided to go to MONA.  It is a privately funded museum, with a huge budget.   I had heard a lot about it, both good and not so good.  Some friends loved it and some warned me about certain exhibitions, but after seeing my friend Simone's blog post I thought it sounded fun, and knew we could skip past the bits that we weren't keen on.

The entrance was beautiful with the leaves changing colour in the vineyard.  

 

The boys were excited right from the start, when they saw all the funky things to go inside and see.

The cement truck sculpture was awesome.

The boys were most excited about the glass elevator, so there was no way we were walking down the stairs as they wanted to try it out.  

We loved the pulse room, where the light bulbs light up in time with your pulse.

One of my favourite things was the waterfall of words.  Every couple of seconds water would drop, displaying a different word. I could've stayed there all day just watching it.

There were lots of cool things to look at. 

At the entrance they give you an iPod and it tracks where you are in the museum and you can click on the different displays and gives you more information about the display, as well as an audio recording about it.  This pen drew by using the power of the wind outside. 

This whole room was full of retro TVs and chairs and each TV showed a story about a refugee.   I spent part of my holidays watching the TV series called 'Go Back To Where You Came From' on catch up TV, as I just want to learn as much as I can about the students I am teaching and what their background may have been like.   I loved the series and could've spent all day sitting in this room listening to the stories. 

This area kind of made me feel a bit sick with the clanging noises as you walked around in the dark to get to the center.  Once we were there we looked up and I thought there were people looking down at us, but realised it was a mirror.

We couldn't stay in this room as the smell was so bad.  It reminded me of Uncle Kim's dairy that we used to spend time at as kids, but I believe it was something to do with bacteria.  I didn't hang around long enough to find out, as the smell was too bad.

If you love people watching these next two exhibitions would've kept you occupied for ages.  These screens showed different angles on a street.

I really loved this one and could've stayed for ages just watching the different people.  They were all singing the same song without music.  It was such a simple concept, but so fascinating to just watch their expressions.

We also loved the white library.  Even though every book was white, you were still drawn in to want to touch and look at each separate book on the shelf.

The boys thought the spider hanging off Tasmania was hilarious.

Kobe loved having his own iPod and would find each display on the iPod whenever we were at a new area.

The fat car was also a favourite.

The building itself was amazing, and you could see down to different floors. 

We had a laugh at the parking spots for the owner and his wife. 

The rubbish bins also made us laugh. I asked Jay to put something in there and he said 'is that guy shooting himself!?' and then we read what was on the bin and thought it was actually very clever.

We didn't actually see all of it, and some rooms we weren't sure about going in (like the 'death room') but we really enjoyed it.  There were some things that were just really weird, but I guess that's art.  The boys actually asked if we could go back on the way home, so we will have to go again another time we are back in Hobart, as the exhibitions are always changing.