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Published: March 17th 2015
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Monday 16th March 2015 MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, is considered to be one of the top attractions of Hobart. It is the largest privately funded museum in Australia and was founded in 2001 by Tasmanian millionaire, David Walsh. This was where we headed this morning.
It is set in the Moorilla Winery about 20kms from Hobart on cliffs overlooking the Derwent River. There were very few signs showing where to enter the museum from the carpark and we wandered past the winery with its workers going about their normal business. An unassuming building near the cliff edge was where other people were entering through a curved metal façade.
The museum is set with 3 levels underground, is a warren of tunnels connecting display areas. The displays consisted of static, electronic, mechanical, auditory, you name it, it was there. There were well lit ones, hidden ones, some behind curtains, and gloomy sections between them. It was interesting and exciting in many ways but Rags found it a little claustrophobic and the flashing lights etc somewhat off-putting. The exhibits were unusual, as expected, the ipod supplied at the door giving us some idea of
Snake
This vast mural, Sidney Nolan's Snake – more than 46 metres long and nine metres high – is the artist's largest work. Made up of 1620 individual pieces of paper. what they depicted. It also had a section on art wank which included little quotes such as "'Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.' – Benjamin Franklin". Another section reproduced articles which critiqued the works so one could spend a lot of time with eyes fixated on the ipod. There were sound files too but the volume was so poor that after trying to listen to a couple we gave up and took the headphones off. Some of these were interviews with the artist.
After nearly a couple of hours Rags felt he had to get back to daylight leaving Judy to continue until she had seen enough. Although she is a self confessed non-love of modern art she found the exhibition novel and intriguing - it held her interest for about two hours. By then the knowledge that Rags was waiting outside and the gnawing hunger pains drove her toward the light. By then it was nearly 1400 and we had lunch sitting on a rock at the edge of the carpark.
A walk along the cliff edge followed lunch before we decided to go to the other well-known attraction of
Tasmania, the Cadbury Chocolate factory. As this was only a few kilometres away we got there well before the final public information session at 1500.
Some free samples of chocolate came in the bag provided with our admission and we bought a couple of extras in the shop attached. We were warned that due to health and safety laws we would not be allowed into the factory, instead we would watch a video on how chocolate was made. This was in contrast to when Judy visited nearly 40 years ago when people were taken in to watch first hand the making of the chocolate, getting samples as they went! Still, we went!
By the time we got home we were ready for a rest, both of us seem to be feeling more tired than usual. This was duly done before the preparation of dinner and our evening activities.
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Mum
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MONA and the Chocolate Tour !
Hi Judy and Rags, I found this blog very interesting. I never knew such a place as MONA existed.But then again I'm not much into modern art,so why would I !!! I would have been intrigued to go underground to see it though.Remember interesting things to tell me about when you arrive home, Judy. Like ladies genitals !!?? Really !!! Did the Chocolate taste any better at Cadburys Factory ? I refuse to buy Cadburys any more because I think it's awful. It's not the beautiful smooth chocolate it used to be. Their Drinking Chocolate is still ok though, isn't Rags ? Love Mum xx