Skip to content

ClosedReopening February 2026

A yellow graphic flower on a pink background with words a velvet ant, a flower and a bird

A velvet ant, a flower, and a bird

When

Location

The Potter Museum of Art
Cnr of Swanston St and Masson Rd, Parkville

Admission

Free
  • Large Print
  • Wheelchair Accessible

Opening Hours

Tuesday – Saturday
11 am5 pm

A velvet ant, a flower, and a bird exhibition evokes a garden of knowledge anchored by three familiar figures from nature — a velvet ant, a flower and a bird. These figures represent a parliament of beings, each carrying symbolic and metaphorical weight that encourage us to reimagine what intelligence means.

Each museum floor presided over by one of these natural entities, creating a kind of garden where there is no pre-established order, but rather an ecosystem in which the analogue and the digital interrelate to give rise to a fantastic mental realm.

Drawing from the University of Melbourne’s Classics, Biology, and Art collections, 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 include: Adrian Mauriks, Agnieszka Polska, Alan Craiger-Smith, Alexa Karolinski & Ingo Niermann, Alexandra Copeland, Angela Goh, Ann Lislegaard, Anouk Tschanz, Anthony Romagnano, 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, Julie 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, Noemi Pfister, Noriko Nakamura, Percy Grainger, Pippin Louise Drysdale, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães, Rosslyn Piggot, Rrikin Burarrwaŋa, Salvador Dalí, Taloi Havini, Tamara Henderson, Teelah George, Tessa Laird, and Tony Warburton.

Media Release: Potter Museum of Art announces ambitious new exhibition A velvet ant, a flower and a bird