Port Arthur, MONA, etc.

G'day!

Sarah and me in the Separate Prison chapel - hoods off

Sarah, the English wwoofer, and I stayed at Hobart's YHA Montgomery Hostel and met at least 10 other Americans.  It was sort of weird cuz most of us had seen other American travelers very infrequently previous to this.  We ended up on a 11 hour tour ($70) to Port Arthur with two ex-Chicagoans who most recently lived in Colorado (Paul) and ... San Francisco (Andrew)!

Richmond  Bridge (1823) - oldest bridge in use

Australia and America have a lot in common.  Both countries were British colonies where convicts were sent to allieve overcrowding in English gaols (pronounced jails).  After America won its independence, England started sending its convicts to Australia.    Men, women, and children as young as 8 years old were imprisoned for all sorts of crimes, some very petty and some major.  And since Australia needed people with specific skills such as architecture, supposedly some people were imprisoned on trumped up charges.  Beginning in 1787, convicts were transported to Australia where they could work to serve their sentences, typically a minimum of 7 years.  However, since most convicts were not expected to be able to afford passage back to England, transportation was basically a lifelong exile.  Convict labor built much of Australia's infrastructure and churches and government buildings.  We visited the historic town of Richmond where many convict-built structures still stand.

The Penitentiary at Port Arthur

An aside:  A Sydney man joined the California gold rush in 1849.  After digging for 2 years and finding nothing but dirt, he noticed that the California terrain was very similar to that at home.  He quickly (for that era) returned home and starting digging in the New South Wales creek sides and ....   Eureka! He found gold!  Thus began the 1850s Australian gold rush.  Two effects of the gold rush were that prisoners in England wanted to be transported to Australia at the British government's expense so transportation ended soon after.  And Australia adopted the White Australian policy in the 1860s in response to prejudice against Chinese gold miners that forbade the immigration of non-Europeans until the 1970s.


Australia's Port Arthur Penitentiary was America's Alcatraz, an island prison used as a punishment station for repeat and worst offenders.  Port Arthur was considered inescapable with sharks in the water and half starved dogs guarding Eaglehawk Neck access road to the island.   Port Arthur is the most visited site in Tasmania and served a significant part in the settlement of Australia.  Nowadays, it is fashionable to be descendents of convicts; many Tasmanians can make that claim.

Port Arthur Penitentiary operated as a penal colony for men and women from 1833 until 1877.  Unlike Alcatraz, Port Arthur was a complete community.  It was home to military personnel, their families, and free settlers who lived lives in stark contrast to the prisoners with garden parties, regattas, and literary evenings.  The Penitentiary used the new radical Pentonville (England) Penitentiary model designed to "grind rogues into honest men" by including discipline and punishment, religious and moral instruction, classification and separation, and training and education.  Many prisoners left Port Arthur as skilled blacksmiths, shoemakers, or ironically, as shipbuilders.

There were more than 30 buildings to tour.  One of the most interesting was the Separate Prison.  Some prisoners were enrolled in a scientific experiment called the Separate Prison where complete isolation and silence were enforced.  Violators were treated to the "Dark Room".  Prisoners ate, slept, and worked in their individual cells 23 hours/day with 1 hour/day solitary exercise in a high walled yard. The prisoners placed hoods over their heads whenever they left their cells.  The chapel pews had door/dividers that had to be closed before their hoods came off.  Total isolation and silence 24/7!!!  Some prisoners went nuts. Two nearby islands served as a boys prison and Isle of the Dead cemetery.

MONA with rooftop gardens and ferry pier at right

I also visited several museums.  The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was terrific.  It had a very wide range of natural science exhibits.  Most of them specified which species/specimens were endemic and which were indigenous.  The term Aborigine covers more than 400 tribes of indigenous Australian cultures.   The museum's Palawa exhibit showed and explained ancient tribal culture and its evolution to today's efforts to retain some of of those traditions.

MONA is the Museum of Old and New Art that just opened 21 January 2011.  A Tasmanian professional gambler, David Walsh, got rich when he developed a system for gambling.  He spent $75-80 million to open Australia's largest private museum and make entry free to the public.  At least 250,000 people (Tasmania's population is 500,000) are expected to visit this year; it was packed when I was there.  The museum is controversial; Walsh intends MONA to be "a subversive adult Disneyland".  Themes of sex and death touch on bestiality, euthanasia, sadomasochism, religion, and rebellion.  Two of the exhibit areas were rated PG-15 on the visitor's guide.  I think that was being pretty liberal.  All I can say is that the whole place is different, very different.

Rooftop gardens surrounded by patio walls - inaccessible

Patrons are encouraged to take a 30 minute ferry ride ($15 roundtrip) to the museum as the parking is extremely limited.  The museum is on 3 levels, all underground.   The main access to the exhibits is via a narrow spiral staircase, barely wide enough for one person going up and one person going down.  A  very small glass lift (elevator) is encircled by the staircase.  There's one other lift near the back of the museum.  This place is definitely not for wheel chairs or strollers.  One of the walls near the staircase is a 4 story sandstone rock face.  Long suspended walkways connect some of the exhibit areas.  Never mind the art; the architecture is something to see.  The rooftop gardens were gorgeous.

The Fat Car - for today's over - inflated culture

But onward....    The exhibits are not labelled.  Each visitor is issued an iPhone and earphones upon arrival.  You press the X key so it can locate where you are and load information about the exhibits that you are near.  When you click on the image of what you're looking at, basic info such as the title, artist, medium, and creation date come up.  Additional info may be available including ideas, curator's explanation, art wonk's comments, and/or audio commentary or music.  Sort of cool if you really like technology but at times you spend a lot of time scrolling because of the open architecture.  Apparently some of the iPhones are disappearing....

The 400 exhibits (Walsh's favorites) range from traditional art and artifacts to really, really weird stuff.  One exhibit entitled "Cunts" is 150 plaster casts of women's private parts, women of all sizes, ages, and races.  "Cloaca" is nicknamed the "poo machine" because it represents the human digestive system.  It is fed twice a day and poops everyday at 3 pm.  There were many multimedia exhibits (mostly having to do with some form of sex or nudity), some shown on ceilings with bean bag chairs for viewers' comfort.  A cool exhibit "Bit.fall" featured a 2-story waterfall that spells out random words.

Hobart is the biggest city in Tasmania with about 200,000 population.  It's also the last stop before Antartica and many expeditions pick up their last provisions here.  Despite its small size, there's a lot happening here.  Fleet Week coincided with the Wooden Boat Festival.  Visitors were able to tour a Navy ship, view scores of wooden boats both life-sized and miniature, learn how to build and maintain a wooden boat, and enjoy food booths and live music.  The weeky Salamanca Market on Saturday added to the festive atmosphere.


I had a great time in Hobart.  Cheers!
Cyn

Aussie sailors at attention