Off the wall at Mona, Hobart's unconventional art gallery

Mona has completely changed the way both tourists and art lovers look at Hobart.

The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is a must see in Hobart. Picture: Tourism Australia

Since opening just over a decade ago, Mona has completely changed the way both tourists and art lovers look at Hobart.

The headline-grabbing contemporary gallery was dubbed a “subversive adult Disneyland” by its founder, and has since become the city’s biggest attraction. Now it’s an essential part of any visit to Tasmania’s capital (even for people who would usually never set foot inside a gallery), and a big reason is that there’s so much more to do than simply look at art.

Start with a boat ride

There’s an excited buzz at the ferry terminal in the centre of Hobart’s historic Constitution Dock when I arrive, with an eager crowd forming a long queue even on a weekday morning. Fortunately, a Posh Pit pass lets me skip the lines and when I board I’m directed to the front of the boat where canapés and mimosas await (or as the official website puts it, “free drinks, tiny food and inflated egos”). Soon we’re zipping up the Derwent between bush-covered hillsides and a giant zinc smelter belching white smoke, and the 25-minute trip means there’s just time enough time for a second round before I arrive.

A trip to Mona starts at Constitution Dock in Hobart. Picture: Getty Images

Get completely lost

The museum itself is housed in a three-storey structure that resembles the lair of some forgotten bond villain. Because it’s mostly underground, visitors enter via a spiral staircase that descends deep into the earth before emerging in a vast hall lined by monumental walls of Triassic sandstone.

Mona is not meant to be experienced in a linear fashion and as I walk in, a helper tells me that the best way to take it all in is to “mooch around and get a bit lost.” Soon I’m taking that advice a little too literally. At times, walking through the museum feels like being inside an Escher drawing and as I wander through a series of cavernous galleries connected by dimly-lit tunnels, I lose my sense of direction so thoroughly that I’m startled when I eventually arrive back at my starting point.

Mona one of the most controversial collections of modern art in the world. Picture: Adam Gibson

Stop for lunch and a lie down

Stepping into the onsite restaurant Faro, I finally regain my bearings thanks to the giant plate glass windows that frame the waters of the Derwent a few metres below. It’s billed as a “revolving” restaurant because the theme changes every few months, and the Tokyo Punk experience begins with an intense umami-driven miso, mushroom and whisky cocktail that leads into theatrical dishes like sashimi kingfish, smoked eel and sea urchin presented in a thurible. This being Mona, there’s far more to the meal than simply what’s on the plate and a costumed performing troupe pops up at various points throughout the meal to play 5,6,7,8s style punk, lead meditations and stage mock battles.

Bookings are essential for the degustation-only restaurant, and there are a few tasty side orders on offer as well. Chief among them is Unseen Seen, a mind-bending artwork housed in a giant white sphere. Only two people can enter at a time, and when my turn comes I’m instructed to lie on the bed inside so I can look up at the curved ceiling as the orb is flooded with different coloured lights. Soon they begin to oscillate more and more rapidly until my brain can no longer keep up. That’s when images start to emerge from this hallucinogenic strobe show, the light resolving into shapes and patterns that seem to move towards and away from me. It’s an intense, profoundly moving work and it’s easy to see why many visitors have likened it to an acid trip - when I emerge from the pulsating cocoon I simply sit in silence for a few minutes, contemplating the almost rapturous experience.

You can easily spend a whole day at Mona during a trip to Hobart. Picture: Getty Images

Check out some art

Because the information about each work is accessed via a downloadable app rather than plaques affixed to the walls, there’s a pleasingly democratic air to the exhibits on display. Wandering around in a daze, I see pieces by modern masters like Botero and Sydney Nolan afforded equal status to a chrome-plated poo emoji and a 2500-year-old mummified Egyptian cat head.

As much a playground as a gallery, Mona is designed to bring the art off the walls. Some of the more memorable works include the infamous “poo machine” that replicates the human digestive process (and the accompanying smell) and a giant device that “prints” words in falling sheets of water, each legible for a fraction of a second before dissipating into a formless puddle. At both, I hear people pondering the “how” of these impressive machines as well as the “why”. Others simply watch in wonder.

By the time I board the ferry back to Hobart (swapping the mimosa for a glass of wine), I’ve spent a full day at the museum but feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. I’m far from alone in that sentiment and eavesdropping on the groups around me, I’m struck by how different each person’s experience of the day was. Some describe intensely cerebral interactions with the art they encountered while others didn’t stop laughing all day, and every one of them lists a different experience as their highlight. And before we reach the dock, I’ve already decided that I need to revisit this endlessly fascinating, utterly unique gallery the next time I’m in Hobart.

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Originally published as Off the wall at Mona, Hobart's unconventional art gallery