5 months in tasmania: weird, wild and wonderful

While I sat on a rather average, black, probably faux-leather couch outside MONA’s new-release exhibit, a woman slithered along the wall behind me. Yes, slithered. Like all employees at the Muesum of Old and New Art (MONA), she wears black. All black. She bends herself into knots, leans then lunges then smushes herself against the wall, the back of the couch, the back of the man waiting in line to dine at the exclusive and oh-so-regal Far Out restaurant for which the museum is renowned.

In short, this woman is paid to be weird. To freak people out a little. To claim strangeness as an art form that can propel us to think anew, stretch our imagination, allow difference. MONA is more than your average museum, it is interactive, strange, a labyrinth of magical madness. Oh, and it is owned by a Tasmanian billionaire, so no government regulations here.

So I sat there, waiting, and watching this woman stretch herself beyond normalcy. And I thought “how come we often cling so tightly to what we claim to be normal? Why does it feel dangerous yet savvy when we do the odd thing?”

I went to MONA just a few weeks after arriving in Tasmania in February. Days were long and sunny. Everything was new—mullets and flat white coffees and finding the shortcut walk up the Nanny Goat Lane steps to commute downtown. I took the ferry to the museum, marveling in the shimmer on the Derwent River, giggling as I sat on a plaster sheep—my seat for the duration of the 20 minute ride.

Inside the museum the art astounded me. Gargantuan walls covered with crayon scribbles. A puffy Porsche. Infinite loops drawn by the wind. There are dark themes, messages of God and every strange thing in between. Nobody directed me where to go, there were no “come this way” signs or a pamphlet suggesting any direction. The intent is to wander, to feel, to play with weirdness.

Spending five months in Tasmania was a bit strange. Nobody I knew suggested “come this way!” It was completely unknown, far out, a place filled with an eclectic people and energies.

Embracing these seemingly random chapters of life is something I love about the life I’m choosing to live. I’m meeting new people, learning new histories, exposing myself to difference and living in the strangeness—which after a while meld into a wider sense of my understanding of reality.

Here in Tasmania, I learned how to handstand. I trained to be a barista without any previous dream of ever making coffee. I lived in a house from 1860 with tilted floors so that when I burned a candle at dinner one side of the wax melted down while the other remained untouched. I’ve learned a new aussie vernacular for shortening words and lessening stress. I’ve breathed the cleanest air on Earth and seen the “edge of the world” (one of many, I know).

When I returned to MONA last week, I knew what to expect. All the creepy uncanny sounds, the chambers of neon lights, the art that, no matter how long you look upon it, won’t quite make sense. And of course, the men and women paid to act a little strange—to stand in a blank exhibit and walk in circles and in the process make you question everything. And I mean everything.

Why do we move and think the way we do? Why do we make the life choices we do? Why travel? Why stay? Career or café? Walk or skip across the street? Should I wear my teardrop earrings or sport a tiny shovel on one lobe and a dangling heart on the other? Do I want to make sense? Do I need to?

I came to Tasmania with my boyfriend because we both want to travel, to challenge our understanding of what life is all about. To expand, experience, evolve. I’m grateful that Tasmania has granted me these gifts.

I’m leaving here able to throw my feet over my head, pour a semi-decent latte art, and understanding the aboriginal histories of a land I never learned about in school. I’ve climbed epic mountains, petted kangaroos (arguably one of the best days of my life) and made a few meaningful friendships. I’m leaving feeling alive, fulfilled and ready for what is to come.

All this newness and strangeness and open-heartedness, all that makes me feel alive, is guiding me on my path of connecting with my wild, true self. And if I “achieve” nothing else, that is enough. It is more than enough.

With love,

Ava //

Rewilding Child

P.S. Up next, I’m making a few quick stops on mainland Australia before heading up to Indonesia! I’ll be working three days a week remotely as an Editorial Assistant for the Global Landscapes Forum. Follow along as I document the ways my heart and mind grow as I travel!