A velvet ant, a flower and a bird

The University of Melbourne’s Potter Museum of Art is proud to announce A velvet ant, a flower and a bird an ambitious new exhibition curated by Chus Martínez.

Opening February 19 and running until June 6, 2026, A velvet ant, a flower, and a bird remembers a historical genre: the Medieval bestiaries. Through the multifold collections of the University of Melbourne and a series of newly commissioned works, the exhibition situates cognition as a process emerging through networks of human and nonhuman systems, including the digital. Flowers, ants and birds constitute a parliament of beings, each carrying literal and symbolic weight that encourages us to reimagine what intelligence means.

Each museum floor presided over by one of these natural entities, creates an ecosystem in which the analogue and the digital interrelate to give rise to a fantastic mental realm. Material culture, cognitive science, ancient orders, contemporary art all materials tell that the human mind is fundamentally literary, we think in small stories and that the senses and art are fundamental to arrive at an understanding of the world around us. 

At a time when fantasies of domination—technological or otherwise—threaten to upend our sense of equality, we urgently need spaces that train free thought. A relevant society is one where many forms of knowledge flourish, inspiring new languages for thinking and feeling together.

The ambition of this exhibition is to create discussion groups about the future of coexistence, and to collectively unravel how each community, group, body of knowledge, or discipline wishes to contribute to the creation of a relevant society.

Works from the University of Melbourne’s Classics, Biology, and Art collections, are presented alongside new commissions and performances; historic and contemporary art co-mingle to envision intelligence as living, continually evolving, interconnected and interdependent.

Guest curated by Chus Martínez, director of the Institute of Art Gender Nature at the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design, Basel, Switzerland.

Participating artists: Adrian Mauriks, Agnieszka Polska, Alan Craiger-Smith, Alexa Karolinski & Ingo Niermann, Alexandra Copeland, Ann Lislegaard, Anouk Tschanz, Anthony Romagnano, Archie Barry, Barbara A Swarbrick, Benjamin Armstrong, Brent Harris, Carol Murphy, Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran, David Noonan, Derek Tumala, Din Matamoro, Eduardo Navarro, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Harold Munkara, Heather B Swann, Helen Ganalmirriwuy Garrawurra, Helen Maudsley, Ian Wayne Abdullah, Inge King AM, Ingela Ihrman, Jane Jin Kaisen, Joan Jonas, John Pule, Josie Papialuk, Judith Pungkarta Inkamala, Julia Mensch, Kate Daw, Lauren Burrow, Liss Fenwick, Lorraine Jenyns, Malcolm Howie, Margaret Rarru Garrawurra, Marian Tubbs, Mel O’Callaghan, Mia Boe, Miles Howard-Wilks, Nabilah Nordin, Naomi Hobson, Neha Choksi, Noemi Pfister, Noriko Nakamura, Percy Grainger, Pippin Louise Drysdale, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães, Rosslynd Piggot, Rrikin Burarrwaŋa, Salvador Dalí, Taloi Havini, Tamara Henderson, Teelah George, Tessa Laird, and Tony Warburton.

Presented by Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne. 

This exhibition is made possible by
Pro Helvetia: Swiss Arts Council, Danish Arts Foundation, Swedish Arts Council, Embassy of Spain in Canberra, Oxenford Collection, Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.