My Learned Object: Collections & Curiosities draws its content from over 25 of the University of Melbourne’s cultural collections. Rich and varied, the cultural collections form an integral part of the workings of the University. Primary documents – decorative arts, botanical specimens, zoological specimens, paintings, models, furniture, bones, photographs, books, scientific equipment, ephemera (the list goes on) from across all university collections can be largely divided into three main categories, namely the arts, the sciences and the archives. There is considerable overlap amongst these areas and My Learned Object was a rare opportunity to explore the possibilities of these intersections.
The exhibition’s four main themes – people and personalities, same but different, chromatic variation and mapping Melbourne – connect objects from diverse collections to create unique resonances, removing items from the specificity of the collections in which they are characteristically both housed and understood. My Learned Object highlighted the ways that disparate collections can be combined to tell new stories and form a new interface. Many of the university’s cultural collections were born out of the needs of a growing city and as a result the exhibition articulates the intimate relationship between the university, the city of Melbourne and the state of Victoria.
The university’s collection is dynamic and diverse. My Learned Object: Collections & Curiosities demonstrated that authentic first-hand experience of objects remains an important aspect of teaching, learning and research at the University of Melbourne.
Curated by Dr David Sequeira.
My Learned Object, Potter Museum of Art, installation view.
R. Brendel & Co., Nasturtium (Tropceolum majus) early 20th century, papier-mâché, wood. University of Melbourne Herbarium, the University of Melbourne.
Ludwig Maximilian Kreitmayer, Death mask of Edward Kelly, c. 1880, plaster. Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, the University of Melbourne.
Robert Rooney, Kind‑hearted kitchen‑garden IV 1968, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Purchased with assistance from the Visual Arts Board, Australia Council, 1985. © Courtesy the artist.
Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux, Auzoux model of the eye with removable parts. Showing extra-ocular muscles and frontal bone. Removable glass lens, late 1890s – early 1900, papier-mâché. Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, the University of Melbourne.
Crystal form models mid-20th century, timber. FA Singleton Earth Sciences Collection, the University of Melbourne.
Margaret Stones, Crassula pedicellosa (F. Muell.) Ostenf. 1973, watercolour. The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Purchased with funds from the Charles Duplan Lloyd Trust, 1973. © Courtesy the artist.