The MONA Effect
If you haven’t heard of MONA, chances are you’ve been living in a cultural wasteland for the past few years. Hobart’s answer to New York’s MoMA, Paris’ Louvre or London’s Tate, MONA is a mecca for art, food, music, wine, festivals and architecture. You name it, they have it. Digital Strategist, Jennifer Tucker, and MONA’s Web Manager, Eleanor Robb, discuss how the experience at MONA is winning hearts, minds and delivering an unprecedented boom for the Tasmanian tourism industry.
Jennifer Tucker: MONA has had an almost incomprehensible impact on Tasmania’s tourism industry, over 1.5 million visits since 2011 — not too shabby given the state’s population is half that. Often referred to as ‘the MONA effect’, most other Tasmanian tourism and entertainment organisations have seen huge increases in ticket sales and patronage since MONA’s arrival — is this side effect the result of a concerted effort or a happy coincidence?
Eleanor Robb: In the beginning it was a happy coincidence, but in more recent years we have built close partnerships with tourism and the community through programs such as our travel with MONA packages, which hinge around our latest exhibitions, but also showcase other attractions and accommodation around the state. The two annual music and arts festivals, in particular, our winter festival Dark MOFO, places a lot of emphasis on community engagement by working with other Tasmanian partners to boost tourism and also facilitate tangible community outcomes.
Dark MOFO has been particularly important in attracting visitation in winter, which was previously viewed as an undesirable time to visit Tasmania and received the lowest visitation figures. In the same way that MONA flipped the museum model on its head, Dark MOFO has flipped traditional tourism patterns and made winter in Tasmania an exciting prospect for interstate visitors.
Now in its third year, Dark MOFO is also dispersing these visitors around the state, with events in regional Tasmania supplementing the core festival in Hobart. Venues and businesses from all around Tasmania have jumped on-board by hosting unofficial Dark MOFO parties, offering discounts on products, organising events that run at the same time, or participating in the Paint The Town Red initiative. By working collaboratively with Tourism Tasmania and Tourism Australia we are able to harness momentum and reach new audiences.
J: Do you think that people come to MONA because it has become a ‘must-go’ destination?
E: I believe it has become a ‘must-go’ destination. I don’t think that transplanting MONA somewhere like London or New York, or even Sydney or Melbourne, would have the same effect. It is almost like a pilgrimage, travelling to this tiny island at the bottom of Australia. The museum’s surrounds are very unique — a mountain backdrop, access via a river and a functioning, 50-year-old vineyard and winery out the back.
J: MONA has always shown a dedication to digital — for example, ‘The O’ was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. With virtual reality coming within reach in 2015 and beyond, do you think we will begin to see a greater extension of these digital and physical experiences in the museum and gallery world?
E: Absolutely. Digital innovation and the arts go hand-in-hand. However, I don’t think that digital should replace the gallery experience but investigate ways of enhancing and extending the experience. Digital’s role is not to stand alone and separate from cultural experiences, but to find ways to make those experiences even richer for the consumer.
MONA’s Groundbreaking ‘The O’
‘The O’ is unobtrusive and easy to use. It enhances your visit to MONA without trying to get in the way of it. It also adds benefit to the post-visit experience by emailing your real tour to you so you can continue to explore and revisit artworks even after leaving. Furthermore, The O works because the content it provides is personal and surprising; it strays from the usual museum didactics. You can read comments from MONA’s owner, and professional gambler, David Walsh in Gonzo, listen to an interview with the artist or read the more traditional ‘art wank’.
J: In 2011, the same year MONA opened their doors, Google launched the ‘Art Project’ as a way of sharing some of the world’s greatest art online. Do you think that these types of initiatives could be a threat to museum and gallery patronage in the future or simply help to engage audiences?
E: I don’t see these kinds of digital experiences as threats. I don’t believe that an online representation can capture the rich experience of seeing an artwork in situ, especially somewhere like MONA. It’s a multisensory experience; feeling the breeze on the ferry across the Derwent, descending into a subterranean gallery, listening to the whoosh of Julius Popp’s Bit.Fall hit the drain, gazing at a Damien Hirst, then debriefing over a wine in the Void Bar.
Cultural institutions are often shaped by their environment, and the experience you get as a cultural consumer from exploring that environment can’t be reproduced digitally.
That said, initiatives like Google’s ‘Art Project’ are fantastic tools to help introduce new audiences to art and enabling a much broader audience to consume it. It’s fantastic that someone in China has access to Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ from MoMa in New York, regardless of whether they have the means to actually travel there.
People who can and will travel for art will continue to patronise museums and galleries, because half the experience comes from the encounter with the object, the object’s relationship with the space in which it is displayed, the connections you can draw from what else is around it and the emotions of the people who are digesting the artwork with you. There is also a cultural cache in being able to say ‘I’ve seen that’ (in the flesh).
J: In 2013, MONA launched an online travel ‘packages’ system allowing consumers to plan and book trips to Tasmania through the MONA website. Do you think that consumers are wanting more and more of this ‘tailored experience’ offering online?
E: Yes and no. I think travellers these days increasingly want to create their own experience. I think what our packages service offers is a way of highlighting what else is available in the region. A lot of the excitement comes from the dreaming and planning phase, and people are less inclined to buy these neatly packaged experiences. They key is to still make it flexible while subtly suggesting other offerings.
J: When a visitor buys a ticket to MONA, what do you think they’re really buying?
E: While there are certainly those people who are buying a ticket to see ‘The Art’, there is also a high percentage of people who are buying into the experience. Mona offers a uniquely different way of engaging with art and culture in egalitarian terms; removing the art-wank and encouraging people to draw their own conclusions about an artist’s work.
Furthermore, you’re buying a glimpse into the world of MONA’s owner, David Walsh. David’s personality is found throughout the organisation, from the art that he has chosen to collect, to The O device in your hand and even the architecture of the building itself. This adds a very personal layer to any trip to MONA and something uniquely different to any other gallery in the world.
