David Walsh's MONA celebrates a decade of turning art on its head and tourism around
ABCAlice Chugg has been working in hospitality in Hobart for 15 years. Key points: MONA and its festival events are credited with reframing Tasmania as an artistic and cultural destination The gallery was established in 2011 by art collector and professional gambler David Walsh A 2018 report found MONA contributed $134.5m to the Tasmanian economy that year "For the five years pre-MONA it was fun, but it was not like it is now," she said. "As time has gone on, we've got a bigger following and we're getting people booking from interstate months ahead, and I think a lot of that is the tourism boom because of MONA," she said. David Walsh has shown MONA is not just a "millionaire's fad", a professor of cultural economy says. "I think MONA has sort of been determined to be at the cutting edge of exhibition design and approaches, in the way that the architecture has evolved in the past 10 years," she said.