Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
Australia's largest privately funded museum is home to a diverse array of exhibits from Tasmanian millionaire David Walsh's private collection. The unusual collection contains more than 400 often provocative pieces, including Sidney Nolan's Snake—an impressive mural made of 1620 individual paintings—and Wim Delvoye's Cloaca Professional, an interesting contraption that transforms food into excrement. MONA's two-week winter festival, Dark Mofo, celebrates the dark through large-scale public art, music, light, and the Winter Feast, one of the most exciting food festivals in the country. Sometimes compared with Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum, MONA has an eclectic mix of antiquities and contemporary art. The unusual building itself is set into cliffs on the Berriedale Peninsula, and visitors to the museum use touch-screen devices to learn about the exhibits as they wander around. There is often music on the lawns with large-scale public art throughout the site, and there are several excellent restaurants on-site. To reach MONA, it's a 25-minute drive, or you can take the MONA fast catamaran from the Hobart waterfront.
