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'Aimless and Absurd Wanderings'? Children at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona)

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journal contribution
posted on 2025-03-24, 05:11 authored by Adrian FranklinAdrian Franklin, M Sansom
This article reports on the experience of children at the Museum of New and Old Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania. Referred to by its innovative owner as a ‘subversive adult Disneyland’, Mona went further than most new contemporary art galleries in designing a radically new experience of art. It captured the imagination of people new to art in its own locality as well as a global art public. Favoured by leading international contemporary artists for the freedom it gave art unmediated by art history, Mona also seemingly captured the imagination of children. Through an ethnographic approach in which five young children’s visits were documented in great detail, the article considers these in the light of children’s experiences of previous exhibitionary platforms and the relevance of Mona’s museological interventions for building their dispositions to art and broadening art publics.

History

Publication title

Museum & Society

Volume

16

Issue

1

Pagination

28-40

ISSN

1479-8360

Department/School

School of Social Sciences, Office of the School of Social Sciences

Publisher

University of Leicester * Department of Museum Studies

Publication status

  • Published online

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© 2018, Adrian Franklin, Michelle Sansom. This article can be re-used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

Socio-economic Objectives

130199 Arts not elsewhere classified

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