Hobart’s Mona to open Bangkok offshoot

The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania, and Asset World Corp Public Company Limited (AWC) in Bangkok, Thailand, have announced they are working together to develop MONA Bangkok, a major new art destination on the banks of the Chao Phraya River.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff joined Mona founder David Walsh, artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele, DarkLab CEO and creative director Leigh Carmichael and Mona executives in Bangkok for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with AWC, represented by Chief Executive Officer and President Wallapa Traisorat, and Chief Commercial Business Officer Michael Hariz.

The signing was also attended by Australian Ambassador-Designate to Thailand Pablo Kang, Thai Minister of Culture Sabeeda Thaised, Governor of Bangkok Chadchart Sittipunt and Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand Thapanee Kiatphaibool.

The MOU outlines the shared vision for MONA Bangkok, which will bring together Mona’s extensive experience creating internationally acclaimed art, music and cultural destinations with AWC’s record of landmark developments in Thailand.

David Walsh, Mona’s founder, said: "Having spent most of the last 25 years studying how museums work, AWC has presented us with a remarkable opportunity to take what we’ve learned to one of the great tourist centres of the world."

Since opening in Hobart in 2011, Mona has been visited by over 5.2 million people. It has helped change visitors’ perception of Tasmania and turn Hobart into an international cultural destination, drawing audiences from across Australia and around the world through its idiosyncratic approach to exhibitions, festivals, architecture, and hospitality.

The MONA Bangkok project will be led on Mona’s side by Carmichael under the direction of Walsh, with assistance from a project team of skilled creatives.

Carmichael has worked with Walsh for over 20 years. Together they established the Mona brand, the Dark Mofo festival, and cultural precinct In The Hanging Garden.

“MONA Bangkok will take the creative spirit of Mona into a new context,” Carmichael said. “Like the museum in Hobart, it will be unconventional and unique, and will present work by leading international artists, while also creating opportunities for meaningful dialogue with Thai artists, audiences and cultural traditions.

“The theme of light will be explored both as a physical phenomenon and as a metaphor. Light has long been a source of fascination, reflection and hope across cultures, and it feels especially resonant in Bangkok, with its rich cultural life and traditions. I’m looking forward to listening, learning and seeing where this project leads as it develops.

“We look forward to working with AWC on this ambitious project, and to meeting with Thai artists, designers and makers as we begin the journey.

“Bangkok is already home to important contemporary art events and institutions including the Bangkok Art Biennale, MOCA Bangkok and the newly opened Dib Bangkok. MONA Bangkok is intended to build on this momentum, helping strengthen the city’s position as a global art destination.”

Traisorat said: "At AWC, Building a Better Future is at the heart of everything we do. This collaboration with Mona reflects the power of partnerships to create lasting cultural and economic value. 

"Together, we are building more than a new destination - we are creating a bridge between Thailand and Australia through a shared vision, a passion for art, a shared commitment to sustainable tourism and a belief in the power of culture to connect people.

“We are excited to welcome Mona to Bangkok to create a world-class cultural landmark that inspires creativity, fosters meaningful artist communities, and encourages more people to discover new experiences. By bringing together art, innovation and hospitality, MONA Bangkok will strengthen the creative industry and enhance Thailand as the leading global sustainable destination.”

Further details on the project will be announced in due course.

Image: An early rendering of MONA Bangkok. Courtesy Mona, AWC and Six Degrees Architects.

Books and more books: Mona to unveil new wing

Need another excuse to visit Tasmania?

Mona founder David Walsh (right) has just come up with something. It only took him 10 years to get it done.

After four years of construction and 10 years of headaches, Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is set to open its new wing in June, Walsh reveals.

It will feature a vast library to house his collection of rare books, maps and more, along with artworks by Anselm Kiefer, Julian Charrière and others.

"I was always all-in on books and libraries," Walsh says. "My first library card was the great leveller, the thing that gave impoverished child-me a chance to seek.’

The Phrontisterion, coined by Aristophanes in his work Clouds, for ‘a thinkery’, in which he ridicules the self-certainty of the educated, will draw from Walsh’s collection of "a big bunch of books".

Mona’s librarian Mary Lijnzaad said: "If you want to know what David is really like, browse his bookshelves."

Phrontisterion is connected to Mona’s existing buildings via tunnels in the sandstone and located in the space beneath the inverted-ziggurat levels of Elektra (above), an Anselm Kiefer amphitheatre, first built at Kiefer’s studio at La Ribaute in Barjac, southern France, with sculptures and paintings by the artist installed throughout.

The new wing will accommodate Breathe, a permanent installation by Julian Charrière, whose solo exhibition Hard Core will reside at Mona from June 6, 2026 to April 5, 2027. The installation invites visitors to breathe air that has never been breathed before.

The opening of the new wing also coincides with the return of Ryoji Ikeda’s light tower, spectra, and the Mona debut of In Absence, an architectural installation created by Kokatha/nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce and Melbourne architects Aaron Roberts and Kim Bridgland for the 2019 NGV Architecture Commission.

The 9-metre-high timber tower takes inspiration from traditional eel traps and is adorned with 1,400 hand-blown, black glass murnong, or daisy yams.

See mona.net.au

Images: Supplied by Mona

Hard Core: Mona unveils a new headliner

French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière has been chosen as the next headliner at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart. 

Charrière will present his first solo exhibition in Australia in Tasmania from June 6, 2026, to March 29, 2027.

Opening in time for mid-winter festival Dark Mofo (June 11-22), his Hard Core will feature an assemblage of artworks from sculpture and installation to film and photography that bridge nature, science, history, industry and myth.

‘Ideas burst from Julian Charrière (below) like licks from an over-friendly dog," says Mona’s founder, David Walsh. 

"Sometimes it’s a lot - attending one of Julian’s exhibitions can be overwhelming. But Julian isn’t a meddler. His ideas are deep and incisive, the sort of ideas that expose the soft white underbelly of reality." 

Hard Core will transform Mona’s touring galleries and spill out into the Void and newly excavated additions to the museum. 

It will feature sculptures made of coal, lava, molten computers, onyx and obsidian.

Cored samples taken from glacial erratic boulders are repaired with steel, aluminium, brass and silver. A lump of stromatolite rock, hundreds of millions of years old, is slowly polished to a perfect sphere between lapidary rock grinders. 

There are plants preserved cryogenically, snails slurping the calcium carbonate from marble statues, and a vending machine full of fossilised ammonites.

So, all very Mona. 

In photographs and video installations, Charrière pits human action against ideas of nature’s grandeur and vulnerability. 

With Breathe, a permanent installation commissioned especially for Mona and built into the museum’s foundations, Charrière releases oxygen molecules that have been trapped inside banded iron ore formations since the Great Oxidation Event some 2.4 billion years ago. 

Visitors are invited to inhale this ancient air, which has been lodged in rock over the years, 

Mona’s director for curatorial affairs, Jarrod Rawlins, said: ‘We like beautiful adventures, physically, emotionally and philosophically, and Breathe delivers that from every angle.’

Berlin-based Charrière has exhibited widely, but this is his first solo exhibition in Oceania.

‘What’s special about this show is how it coalesces distinct works into a single geological body, compressing planetary timescales into a shared, stratigraphic architecture and encounter," the artist says. 

" Here, Mona acts as both figurative and literal bedrock - a boundary-pushing museum which, carved from sandstone, situates human civilization within a far older story; a story of stone and bone.

‘Tasmania, too, is integral to the temporal dissonance of Hard Core: a primeval, almost Gondwanan place, where exhibiting feels less like placing works in a museum and more like returning them to the planetary condition to which they already belong.’ 

A full-colour exhibition catalogue including installation photography will be published later this year.

* Charrière has exhibited at many of the world’s major art institutions, including solo shows at Museum Tinguely in Switzerland, Palais de Tokyo in France, and SFMoMA in the US. 

Moo Brew set to celebrate 20 years of artisanal beers

Long before there was MONA, there was Moo Brew.

Moo Brew, the oldest and largest craft brewery in Tasmania, will celebrate turning 20 later this month.

With two specially-brewed limited release beers on offer and a party at MONA, beer lovers will be able to raise a glass to two decades of brewing led by MONA supremo David Walsh.

Walsh founded Moo Brew when he discovered a bottle he liked and wanted something to put in it.

The brewery was established in Berriedale at Moorilla Estate in 2005 - several years before Walsh’s museum opened its doors - later moving to their purpose-built home in Bridgewater.

In 2023 the team opened Manky Sally’s in Salamanca, a taphouse and nano-brewery boasting tiny tanks and an oversized attitude.

Moo Brew returns to MONA on Saturday, November 22, taking over the lawns to celebrate its r birthday with the help of the museum’s chef Vince Trim and an all-Tassie music line-up, There will then be a "riotous" after party at Manky Sally’s.

The two new limited-release beers, brewed to mark 20 years, are the Single Hop Tassie Pale Ale and Belgian Golden Strong Ale, brewed by all three of Moo Brew’s former and current head brewers: Owen Johnston (2005-2014), Dave MacGill (2014-2020) and Jack Viney (2020-present).

The Single Hop was re-released this week with the Belgian Strong Ale following on November 27.

The beers will be available in good bottle shops and venues around Tasmania and via Moo Brew’s website. Both will be available to Mona and Manky Sally’s imbibers on November 22 as part of the birthday celebrations.

Moo Brew Head Brewer Jack Viney says: 'It's not often a craft brewery makes it to 20 years, and it’s testament to the enduring love of Moo Brew - and the efforts of the people behind it -that we’re able to pull this off.

"Getting together with our former head brewers was so special, and we’re thrilled to present a traditional Belgian-style beer (a nod to David's beer cellar) in the OG bottle, as well as the much beloved Single Hop tallboy."

Birthday celebrations from 12pm–4:30pm at MONA will feature games, giveaways, flame-grilled lawn food from the Heavy Metal Kitchen, and a stout and oyster bar.

Beers and merch available via www.moobrew.com.au.

Dark Mofo returns to brighten up Tasmania's winter

Tasmania's Dark Mofo mid-winter solstice festival,will return in 2026 from Thursday, June 11-Monday, June 22.

Alongside large-scale public art installations, live performances and musical acts, Dark Mofo 2026 will include familiar rituals: Winter Feast, Night Mass, the Ogoh-Ogoh burning and the Nude Solstice Swim as the sun rises after the longest night of the year.

While the full festival program will be announced next year, organisers have revealed that a strictly limited first release of tickets to Night Mass - Dark Mofo's late-night takeover of Nipaluna/Hobart CBD - will go on sale at 10am on Wednesday, November 5, to those who have pre-registered via the Dark Mofo website.

"Mark your calendars," urged Dark Mofo artistic director Chris Twite. "It’s exciting to share Dark Mofo’s 2026 dates today as we take our first steps towards next year’s festival where we’ll once again bathe the streets in red, feast by firelight and indulge in a smorgasbord of art, music and performance.

"With plenty of surprises in store, revellers have an opportunity this week to access an early release of tickets to Night Mass and get a head start on planning their winter debauchery."

Following a one-year hiatus, the return of Dark Mofo in 2025 attracted over 50,000 interstate and overseas visitors to Tasmania and delivered over $67 million in economic benefit to the state.

"We’re so grateful for the continued support from David Walsh, and that of the Tasmanian Government, not to mention Tasmanian businesses, residents and visitors - all of whom enable us to continue celebrating the dark," Twite says.

Minister for Tourism, Hospitality and Events, Jane Howlett, said: "Dark Mofo is an iconic Tasmanian event, which drives visitation to the state during the off season and one that is recognised as a world-class winter festival. The Tasmanian Government is a proud supporter of this event.

‘Dark Mofo has something for everyone and we know how important it is to our tourism and hospitality sector during the quieter months. Visitors to Tasmanian events stay longer than the average visitor, and stays have grown, now 2.5 nights longer than they were in 2019."

 # Dark Mofo is a project of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), supported by the Tasmanian Government through Events Tasmania, with additional support provided by the City of Hobart.

Dark Mofo promises a car crash - and lots more

From car crashes to artworks, performances to food and wine, Tasmania's favourite winter festival Dark Mofo returns from June 5-15 and 21.

Organisers today announced an ambitious program designed to entertain locals and bring tourists to the island state during its coldest month.

The mid-winter festival will showcase large-scale public artworks in the Dark Park art hub and across Nipaluna/Hobart, along with annual rites such as the sprawling Night Mass parties, the Winter Feast gourmet festival, the traditional Ogoh-Ogoh burning, and the Nude Solstice Swim.

Dark Mofo Films also make a comeback under new artistic director Chris Twite.

"Once again we will bathe the city in red, filling it with art and taking over disused and hidden spaces all across Nipaluna/Hobart," Twite says.

"Night Mass - the late-night labyrinth of revelry - will carve new paths through the city and a host of Australian-exclusive artists from around the world will storm our stages."

The festival will utilise deconsecrated churches, rooftops, basements, bars, bank vaults and the shores of River Derwent. Dark Mofo will also stretch its tentacles to a theatre in Launceston and the planetarium in Ulverstone.

"It feels incredible to bring so many boundary pushing artists to Tasmania in 2025 for the full-scale return of Dark Mofo," says Twite.

The festival features new artwork commissions from Paula Garcia and Carlos Martiel, the Australian premiere of a massive light installation from Nonotak and performances from the likes of The Horrors, Tierra Whack, Beth Gibbons and Crime and the City Solution.

In Crash Body (above), two cars will engage in an exchange of near misses, building to a visceral head-on collision between Brazilian artist Paula Garcia and a stunt driver. This event will unfold at the Regatta Grounds over two hours and festival-goers will encounter the aftermath at Dark Park.

SORA by Nonotak will create a dancing, hypnotic firmament inside a cavernous warehouse. Lights on kinetic armatures will spin and pulse at the whim of an invisible wind at times and raging like the apotheosis of an electrical storm at others.

In a brand new Mona exhibition, in the end, the beginning, Italian sculptor Arcangelo Sassolino plays with fire.

The Winter Feast will take over Princes Wharf and Salamanca Lawns throughout the festival. This year the Feast welcomes guest chef Niyati Rao from Mumbai restaurant Ekaa.

She will be teaming up with Chef Craig Will and fellow co-owners of Launceston’s Stillwater, Bianca and James Welsh.

This year’s Ogoh-Ogoh ritual solicits fears to feed a giant Maugean skate - an endangered species found only in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour and threatened by polluting fish farms.

Tickets are now on sale. Subscribe for updates at www.darkmofo.net.au.

# Accor Pacific has once again be named an Official Accommodation Partner for Dark Mofo.

Accor has four hotels in Hobart and five hotels in Launceston, including brands such as Mövenpick, Peppers, The Sebel, Mantra, Mercure and ibis Styles.

Festival-goers can take advantage of the following rates during the event period, starting from $201 per night in Hobart and from $199 per night in Launceston.

To book visit all.accor.com/darkmofo

Dark Mofo reveals provocative new artwork that highlights sadistic power

A provocative newly commissioned artwork is a key component of Dark Mofo, the winter festival that returns to Hobart this winter.

The organisers of Tasmania's mid-winter solstice celebration today revealed the first work in the 2025 festival.

The announcement comes after 6,000 pre-release tickets to festival favourite Night Mass sold out in less than four hours in November, and ahead of the full program release on April 4.

Dark Mofo’s new artistic firector Chris Twite said: ‘Taking the year off in 2024 was a difficult decision, but Dark Mofo is back with renewed energy and focus, ready to deliver an enormous program spanning two packed weeks this June.

‘We’re grateful for the support of the state government and the continued generosity of [MONA owner] David Walsh, which is allowing us to lay the foundation for another incredible decade of Dark Mofo.

‘It was encouraging to sell over 6,000 Night Mass tickets in less than four hours during our pre-release late last year, indicating that demand for the festival remains strong. We are hoping for a similar response when we release the full program on April 4.

‘Today we are excited to reveal the first piece of the festival's massive city wide contemporary art program with a powerful new work by Nathan Maynard".

Premiering at Dark Mofo in 2025 is We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep, a new commission by multidisciplinary Trawlwoolway artist Nathan Maynard.

Locked in a nondescript basement in Nipaluna/Hobart’s CBD, this ambitious work uses flesh to lay bare the legacy of cultural theft and erasure in a mass installation. think sheep heads preserved in glass jars. 

"Languishing in museums and their storerooms are the remains of ancestors of First Nations people from all around our globe," Maynard says.

"They have been stripped of identity and, without consent, treated like specimens for study and scientific inquiry.

"We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep speaks to the sadistic power white institutions flex when they deny First Nations people the humanity of putting our ancestor’s remains to rest in the physical and the spiritual."

Maynard’s installation is the first work to be revealed from the Dark Mofo 2025 program - featuring two weeks of "contemporary art, live music, ritual and revelry in the depths of winter".

Yo receive program updates and access to festival tickets see www.darkmofo.net.au.

Dark Mofo will run between June 5-15 and on June 21. 

We have Mercier: Meet MONA's new installation

 

The latest art blockbuster at Tasmania's ground-breaking MONA opens this morning.

Théo Mercier, French artist and stage director, presents an immense sand sculpture inhabiting MONA's  former library space.

Created in situ from sand and water, MIRRORSCAPE depicts a debris-strewn landscape evoking the aftermath of disaster. It will be on display for a whole year.

Mercier’s site-specific installation is a new work commissioned by MONA, and its presentation is his first time exhibiting in Australia.

MIRRORSCAPE draws inspiration from the detritus of the island and sites where nature and human production collide, as well as local rock formations that have been altered over time -transformed by wind, water runoff and waves.

The multi-layered sculpture "explores a tension between erasure and erosion, the scene corroding our sense of time and scale," Mercier says: ‘The earth shuffles and trembles. It is a collection of catastrophes and its surface bears witness to the natural and political changes - and cataclysms - that pass through it.

"In this work devastation finds itself petrified in the stone, as if we opened a mountain here in Tasmania and discovered the great fossil of a disaster.

"We don’t know whether this would have happened in the past or if it’s a foreshadowing of the near future. MIRRORSCAPE is a conflict suspended in time, quarantined inside a panoramic cell that recalls the scientific laboratory or a vivarium. It is something to be studied at a distance.’

MONA curator Sarah Wallace says: ‘Crafted entirely from Tasmanian sand, Théo's work is a reflection of the fragile and temporary nature of the world around us, and of life itself. I hope visitors will be drawn in by the intricate detail in this captivating installation, while considering the questions he raises about our ecological predicament.’

Théo Mercier is a sculptor and stage director, who lives and works in Paris.

See mona.net.au

Apocalyptic sandscape revealed as MONA's next scene stealer

Acclaimed French artist Théo Mercier has been unveiled as the man behind the next major installation at Hobart’s MONA museum.

Mercier, 40, is a contemporary sculptor and stage director who splits his time between Paris and Mexico City.

He is about to begin construction on an immense sand sculpture that will inhabit MONA's former library space.

To be created in situ from sand and water, DARK TOURISM will depict a debris-strewn landscape evoking the aftermath of disaster. It will open for viewing in February, 2025.

MONA owner and founder David Walsh says: "When Théo was last in Hobart he said he was 'going for a walk.' He walked to the top of kunanyi (Mount Wellington). He’s back, and he’ll be doing something just as mad at MONA."

Mercier’s site-specific installation will be a new work commissioned by MONA and its presentation will be his first time exhibiting in Australia. 

The installation will take inspiration from the notion of ‘dark tourism’: our human propensity to seek out and travel to places associated with suffering and death. 

Tourists have long made visits to sites charged with history’s grim residue, from Pompeii to Auschwitz, the catacombs of Paris to the Cambodian killing fields, Hiroshima to Ground Zero, and Tasmania’s Port Arthur, the MONA team points out. 

DARK TOURISM is also a commentary on earth’s changing climate and its impact on the environment and humanity. 

Visitors to MONA are promised a scene reminiscent of the wake of a hurricane, landslide or tsunami. 

"Crafted entirely from Tasmanian sand, Théo's work is a reminder of the fragile and temporary nature of the world around us, and of life itself," says MONA curator Sarah Wallace. 

"I hope visitors will be drawn in by the intricate detail in this captivating installation, while reflecting on the questions he raises about how we cope with catastrophe."

 

A recent Mercier sandscape in Prague

Mercier asks: "What does it mean to sculpt catastrophe, or to construct collapse? 

"Like others who have painted ruins in the past, DARK TOURISM is about sculpting contemporary ruins, which are also natural disasters. 

"Faced with this frozen landscape, humans find themselves at the heart of the devastation, as spectators and consumers. 

"But there's something contradictory about this project, something romantic and utopian at the same time. Because the sand allows the world to tremble and shuffle itself in infinite figures."

Théo Mercier: DARK TOURISM will run at MONA from Saturday, February 15, 2025, until Monday, February 16, 2026. 

Images: Jérôme Lobato, and Gut city punch, 2023, French Pavillon, Prague Quadrennial, Ondrej Pribyl

Dark Mofo to return in 2025

Tasmania’s leading cultural and culinary festival, Dark Mofo, will be back in 2025 - bigger than ever.

Many Dark Mofo events were on hiatus in 2024, but organisers of the midwinter solstice festival today announced a full return in 2025 with an ambitious art and music program including Dark Mofo rituals Winter Feast, the Ogoh-Ogoh, Night Mass and the Nude Solstice Swim.

Dark Mofo 2025 will take place in Hobart from Thursday June 5 to Sunday June 15 with the swim making a splash on Saturday June 21.

While the full festival program will be announced next year, organisers have revealed that a limited pre-release of tickets to Night Mass - Dark Mofo’s expansive art and music CBD takeover - will go on sale at 10am on Tuesday November 5 to those who have pre-registered via the Dark Mofo website.

Dark Mofo artistic director Chris Twite said: "Dark Mofo is back. For our eleventh chapter once more we’ll bathe the city in red and deliver two weeks of inspiring art, music and ritual. Today we’re giving Dark Mofo devotees a chance to access a limited pre-release of tickets to the sprawling behemoth, Night Mass."

Twite added: “Night Mass is a beast, and this year it will evolve once more; worming its way through the city with new spaces, performances and experiences to dance, explore or crawl your way through.”

The full Dark Mofo 2025 program details will be announced early next year. Sign up to the mailing list for updates www.darkmofo.net.au.

* Dark Mofo is a project of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) supported by the Tasmanian Government through Events Tasmania.

Mona Foma festival has breathed its last breath

In a huge blow to Tasmania, Tasmanians and the Tasmanian tourism industry, the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) has made the decision to close its summer festival.

After 16 years, Mona Foma - Mona’s Festival of Music and Art - has unleashed its mayhem in lutruwita/Tasmania for the final time.

The news was revealed in a press release in which Mona owner and founder David Walsh made the following statement:

‘At Mona Foma -Mofo - at the Peacock Theatre, we joined the Zen Circus, and Italian punk came to live, rent free, in my head.

"In 2023 Peaches turned us all on with her sexy songs, but the thing that turned me on the most was the sign language interpreter signing ‘peg’.

"Guy Ben-Ary in 2017, wiring living neurons to speakers and cajoling them to scream. Gotye playing the ondioline. Robin Fox’s beacons. David Byrne and Philip Glass. Wire and Cale. The Saints and St. Vincent. Dresden Dolls and Dan Deacon. Sun Ra and Neneh Cherry. Kate Miller-Heidke and Vieux Farka Touré.

"And the finches playing guitar. From Here to Ear. That was the first one, in 2009. We bought that work, but we’ve never shown it again. It was too much the first time.

"Mona Foma took us around the world. But it ends here. Maybe the end started at Covid. Maybe it’s because the last festival was a poorly attended artistic triumph. But those aren’t the reasons I killed it.

"I know that we live for experience but, more and more, I seek permanence, a symbolic immortality. At Mona, I’m building this big thing, hopefully it’ll be a good thing, but it’s a costly thing. I’m addicted to building, and my addiction got out of hand. Some things have to go before I’m too far gone.

"Mona Foma is one of those things. It’s been magical, but the spell has worn off. Only these words, from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, remain: ‘Live by the Foma that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy.’

"Gratitude to all of you that came. And to those who didn’t, a silver lining: you’ll no longer suffer from FOMO for FOMA. And anyway, repetition is regimentation. And regimentation is ridiculous.

"Greatest gratitude to those who helped put it together. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me."

Sad.

Moo Brew comes of age with an arty party

Before anyone had heard of MONA, Mona Foma or Dark Mofo there was Moo Brew.

Moo Brew, David Walsh's first hospitality brainwave and now Tasmania's largest craft brewer, comes of age later this month: turning 18.

And Walsh is throwing an arty party at Manky Sally’s to celebrate "entering adulthood with a commitment to creativity, quality and a deep love for the art of brewing".

Moo Brew began life when Walsh found a beer bottle he liked while travelling overseas - and decided he’d need to start a brewery to fill it.

Opened in 2005, the fancy but tiny brewery was initially built in Berridale at Moorilla Estate, one of Tasmania’s oldest wineries, which Walsh had purchased in the mid-90s and dubbed ‘Moo Land’.

In 2011 Moo outgrew the Berriedale brewhouse and moved to a purpose-built brewery in nearby Bridgewater.

Moo Brew’s latest venture, dive bar and taphouse Manky Sally’s, opened earlier this year at Salamanca Place on the Hobart waterfront.

‘Eighteen years of independent local craft brewing is a notable milestone, with so few breweries able to claim this title, we’re overflowing with pride," says managing director Lauren Sheppard.

"This coming of age is all the sweeter with the opening of Sally’s, allowing us to showcase the very best of Moo Brew."

Head Brewer Jack Viney adds: ‘Moo Brew’s commitment to the classics and thirst for experimentation allows us the freedom to create, cause a stir, and break the rules when it suits. I’m stoked to head up a brewery that's proudly local, unpretentious, and keen on making damn good beers from Tasmania."

Manky Sally’s will host Moo Brew’s 18th Birthday Bash from 3pm on Saturday, November 18. They say everyone is welcome, even though it is a tiny space. 

  
Moo Brew drops will be flowing through all 14 taps: seven pouring Moo’s classics, while the other seven will experimental brew, including a Yuzu Kosho Gose birthday brew -with drinks from the first keg on the house.

Moo Brew's new Hobart taphouse also offers stunning food options

Hobart's waterfront Salamanca precinct has a new watering hole with the opening of Manky Sally's taphouse.

The bar is the brainchild of the team behind the oldest and largest craft brewery in Tasmania, Moo Brew, which is part of the empire of MONA boss David Walsh.

Moo Brew managing director Lauren Sheppard, head brewer Jack Viney and head chef Sam Bray are at the helm and Manky Sally’s features its own nano brewery.

The taphouse has over a dozen Moo brew offerings on tap - rotating seasonally - along with a guest Tasmanian brewery offering. 

MONA's design team are behind the concept.

The front bar has retro vibes with its wooden veneer panelling, sheer pinstripe curtaining, tiled bar frontage and vinyl menus. 

It is connected via a mirrored walkway to a cosy back lounge where there’s more than 3000 of Moo Brew’s amber bottles - each containing a glowing LED - that make up an interior wall and false ceiling in a quirky corner of the venue.

Dinner is on offer seven days a week, with lunch available Friday-Sunday, featuring seasonal, shareable and affordable snacks, which pair with Viney's experimental brews.

Menu highlights include crispy and delicious báhn mì sliders filled with pate and pickles ($10); chilli and lime whitebait with vinegar salt and chilli mayo ($17); and Xinjiang spiced wallaby on a stick with Sichuan chilli crisp (terrific! for $10). 

There is also an ale and chocolate ice-cream sandwich using Moo Brew’s Dark Ale, which I have not yet tried. 

Other dishes I did sample included a vibrant fish ceviche ($21), an Australian take on the Japanese pancake dish okonomiyaki (with wild-shot venison - $18), and a daily special: a tangy/spicy venison larb with prawn crackers and salad that would be perfect pairing with several of the Moo Bew beers.   

Chef Bray, who has worked at several top eateries, has created a menu that is both fun and very far away from standard pub grub.  

Manky Sally’s is at 25 Salamanca Place, Hobart. Open seven days, 11am--11pm. See 

https://moobrew.com.au/ 

The writer was a guest of Moo Brew

Are you ready for Tasmania's first queer woodchopping event?

David Walsh and his teams at MONA like to shock and surprise - and they have come up with perhaps Tasmania's most niche event for this year's Mona Foma festival.

Tourism Tasmania has partnered with Mona Foma to support an artistic event called The Tasmanian Queer Woodchop Championships, which aim to raise awareness of Tasmania as a holiday destination for LGBTQIA+ travellers.

The partnership coincides with Australia hosting the internationally renowned LGBTQIA+ festival WorldPride for the first time.

A marketing campaign for The Tasmanian Queer Woodchop Championships has been developed to target LGBTQIA+ audiences attending WorldPride in Sydney.

The free event will take place on the tennis court at MONA - just north of Hobart - at 3:30 pm on Friday, February 24.

Woodchopping is very popular in Tasmania and is a traditionally a high testosterone event.

The Mona Foma team say The Queer Woodchop is "where the classically male-dominated world of timbersports meets joyous queerness in an interactive spectacle of flying wood and fabulousness"

Guests are told to expect "Agfest meets nightclub and country-fair camp".

No tickets are required and the event will be followed by the Mona Sessions, where pop-provocateur Peaches will be performing The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Show. Get tickets here.

Moo Brew moving in on the Hobart waterfront

The oldest craft brewery in Tasmania is setting up shop in Hobart's iconic Salamanca quarter.

Moo Brew has signed a lease on a property in Salamanca and has plans to developing an unconventional venue to match its unconventional beers, Moo Brew is owned by David Walsh, the man behind madcap MONA, and there are plans for the new venue to be equally unconventional.

The venue will be "part taphouse, part bar" and will house a nano-brewery for concocting experimental brews in situ, as well as offering Moo Brew’s classic range of beers.

The team will also be serving wines from Moorilla and Domaine A - also part of the Walsh empire - alongside an array of food and beverage options to suit all appetites.

On signing the lease, Moo Brew general manager Lauren Sheppard said: ‘Moo Brew doesn’t always take the obvious route. Opening a venue is the next stage of our journey, and we could not be more excited to be doing it in Salamanca, and doing it our way.’

Located a stone’s throw from Brooke Street Pier - home of the Mona Roma ferry terminal - the venue is set to begin welcoming punters from the end of the year, approvals permitting.

Moorilla marks a major Tasmanian wine milestone

Sixty years is not a long time - but in the Tasmanian wine business it is an eternity. 

Moorilla marked its 60th anniversary today with a day of celebration, paying homage to the legacy of founding winemaker Claudio Alcorso. 

Moorilla Estate, home to the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), hosted Sexagesimus, a festival described as "a Dionysian day of wine aplenty, feasting, live music and performance on the Mona lawns. 

Latin for 60th, Sexagesimus honours Alcorso, a visionary and pioneer of winemaking in Tasmania. 

Guests were invited to bring a picnic rug and feast from Mona’s food offerings - reimagined in celebration of Claudio. 

Musicians, including Vince Jones, entertained as patrons sipped their way through speciality wine tastings of Moorilla’s rare back vintages, available for one day only.

Moorilla also marked the occasion by re-releasing a limited-edition vintage riesling: the 50th anniversary Cloth Label, made from grapes hand-picked and stomped by foot at Moorilla’s 50th anniversary celebration. 

This limited-edition wine, cellared for 10 years, follows a tradition beginning in 1962 when Alcorso and his family harvested and stomped the first riesling grapes from Moorilla. 

Moorilla winemaker Conor van de Reest (top image) says: ‘Moorilla has a long history here in Tasmania as one of the very first modern vineyards. 

"Throughout that time, through Claudio Alcorso and David Walsh, it has always had an intrinsic link to community. We’re welcoming the public to celebrate Moorilla’s 60th vintage with a fitting tribute to Claudio’s legacy and the ongoing story of the vineyard he established."

David Walsh, Moorilla’s owner and Mona’s creator, says: "I was raised just up the road from Moorilla, and as a child I walked past many times, but I did not enter, because I did not feel that such a special place was meant for one such as me. 

"Had I entered, I would have encountered one of Claudio’s (and Moorilla’s) earliest vintages, and three houses that he commissioned. Years later, I marvelled at jazz on the lawn, and pinot in the glass. 

"I bought Moorilla on a whim, and that whim came to define me. Moorilla became mine, along with its houses, after Claudio had been a sensitive custodian for 47 years."

Brown Thursday: The shittiest shopping experience

MONA founder David Walsh is never short of a publicity stunt or crazy idea. 

So, in the name of capitalism and art, the iconic Hobart museum is rejecting the retail frenzy that is Black Friday by holding its own rival sales event a day earlier. 

MONA's Brown Thursday campaign will see shoppers forced to endure a livestream of the museum’s much-maligned poo machine, Cloaca Professional, in order to nab a bargain from the MONA Shop.

To be broadcast live from within the museum on Thursday, this streamed shopping event has the vibe of a high-end fashion campaign, albeit with a defecating artwork as its centrepiece. 

 

As per its regular routine, Cloaca Professional will be fed at 11am coinciding with a palate-cleansing starter deal unveiled to shoppers. More deals will be unlocked as the day’s meal progresses through Cloaca’s digestive system.

 

The final and biggest offer will be revealed (painstakingly, letter-by-letter) while Cloaca Professional "shits itself". 

The generous discount code will be valid for a limited time only post-poo.

 

‘Brown Thursday’ discounts and other deals will be applied to select items from across the MONA Shop, including the store’s c*** soaps, museum apparel and other gifts. 

Shoppers with a weak stomach can enjoy an 11% discount from 9am on Brown Thursday to midnight on Cyber Monday (Monday, November 29). 

 

Cloaca Professional is the work of Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye. 

Mimicking the human digestive system, the machine is fed and maintained at body temperature, with the machine’s daily meals traveling through an organ-like mechanical and chemical assembly line. 

Cloaca Professional was commissioned by Walsh in 2010 and is the first of Delvoye’s ‘gastro-intestinal’ machines to enter a museum’s permanent collection.

 

Mona’s Brown Thursday live shopping event will run from 11am–2pm on Thursday via Facebook and Instagram. 

 

To browse the Mona Shop, please visit: shop.mona.net.au

LIVESTREAM: x.mona.net.au/BrownThursday

MONA unveils a special treat for Tasmanians

Tasmanians are being encouraged to raid David Walsh’s private wine bunker with a new MONA experience unveiled for locals for a limited time. 

From Saturday, September 25, Tasmanian residents can indulge in a decadent day out at the museum, with special access to artworks, top-notch wine and live music. 

Walsh sums the deal up as an "‘Locals-only VIP-ish day of art and overly expensive wine that we need to get rid of’ experience". 

Guests will begin the day rising to MONA in style, with return ferry travel and bottomless bubbles in the MONA ROMA Posh Pit. 

On site, guests are granted exclusive entry to James Turrell’s transportive Event Horizon (currently only open to Faro diners) and can explore the museum’s extensive collection as well as the current exhibition, CRONE by Sally Rees. 

In the afternoon, visitors are invited to MONA's fine-dining restaurant, The Source, for an hour-long wine tasting session at 2.45pm. 

With borders closed, Walsh's personal cellar has been left languishing, so MONA is encouraging locals to do their bit and drink him dry. 

MONA's sommeliers have hand-selected some of the finest and fanciest wines from the boss's booze collection, exclusively for Mona’s home state VIP-ish guests. 

Later, guests will head back into the museum for the performance by Dean Stevenson of his 4pm project in the Void Bar.

Pip Anderson, the hospitality operations manager at MONA says: ‘With very few mainlanders able to visit, it’s time for us locals to live it up. I’m not one to let a good wine go to waste, so we’re cracking some of the seriously good stuff for our Tassie mates. 

"Come on down and help us put a dent in David’s collection—you’d be doing us a favour. David certainly can’t drink it all by himself, though I know he’s tried."

Costing very fair $83, the Locals-only VIP-ish experience is available exclusively to Tasmanian residents on Saturdays only, and for a limited time (Tasmanian ID is required on site). 

The package includes museum entry (already free for locals), the fancy wine tasting experience, Event Horizon entry fee, return Posh Pit ferry travel and a drink from the Void Bar. 

The experience will run every Saturday for five weeks (Saturday September 25–October 23), with only 44 tickets available on each date.

For more information or to make a booking visit: https://buy.mona.net.au/localsonly 

# Locals tell me tickets sold out within a couple of hours