Art Museums Papers 03: The continuous creation of life purposes

Art Museums Papers 03: The continuous creation of life purposes

by Chus Martínez

Edited by Pippa Milne and Linda Michael. Published by Museums and Collections, University of Melbourne. Designed by Paul Mylecharane for Common Room.

$10 each – available to purchase in gallery.

This is one of three Papers commissioned by Art Museums at the University of Melbourne on the occasion of A velvet ant, a flower and a bird, presented at the Potter Museum of Art (19 February – 6 June 2026). The other Papers are written by Laura Tripaldi and Neha Choksi.

A velvet ant, a flower and a bird re-enacts a ‘garden of knowledge’ structured around three simple entities: a velvet ant, a flower and a bird. Each of these offers ways to envision intelligence as living, continually evolving, interconnected and interdependent.

In conceiving of this exhibition, Chus Martínez considered historic and contemporary material culture and art from a number of collections, including the University of Melbourne’s Classics, Biology and Art collections. As the theory of quantum paradigm proposes, here everything affects everything and is influenced by everything.

About Art Museum Papers

Art Museum Papers is a new publishing series from Buxton Contemporary and the Potter Museum of Art that extends the conversations sparked by our exhibitions, residencies and research programs.