A velvet ant, a flower and a bird exhibition
Highlights
- Explore a vibrant exhibition featuring a velvet ant, a flower, and a bird, sparking curiosity about nature's intelligence.
- Wander through a unique garden of knowledge where historic and contemporary art intertwine, enriching your understanding of interconnectedness.
- Engage with new commissions and performances that challenge traditional views, offering a fresh perspective on intelligence.
- Relax at the on-site café or bar, enjoying refreshments as you immerse yourself in this thought-provoking experience.
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.
Images and Video
Dates & times
- Next occurrence: reoccurring
Features
Actively welcomes people with access needs.
General access
- Companion Cards are accepted.
- Employs people with disabilities.
- Accessibility information and photos, including of a bathroom, room and/or floor plan on their website (can be emailed on request).
- Advise tour guides of the access needs of guests at the time of booking (includes pick up and drop off requirements)
- Assistance with booking arrangements (includes providing clear itineraries with written instructions on what to do at various destinations)
Communication
Welcomes and assists people who have challenges with learning, communication, understanding and behaviour. (includes people with autism, intellectual disability, Down syndrome, acquired brain injury (ABI), dyslexia and dementia)
- Uses Plain English / easy read signage and information (includes menus and emergency information)
- A quiet space is available at the venue/ facility.
Hearing
Caters for people who are deaf or have hearing loss.
- A hearing loop is available.
Physical – Mobility
Caters for people with sufficient mobility to climb a few steps but who would benefit from fixtures to aid balance. (This includes people using walking frames and mobility aids)
- Uses floors/coverings which are slip resistant, firm and smooth
- Grab rails in the bathroom
- Seating in common areas including reception area
Physical – Wheelchair
Caters for people who use a wheelchair.
- Step free outdoor pathways (includes picnic areas, barbecues and shelters)
- A step free main entrance to the building and/or reception area (includes ramps or slopes with a maximum gradient of 1:14, otherwise are too steep for wheelchairs)
- Step free access to restaurant, lounge and bar
- Step free access to the conference or function room
- Lifts with enough space for people using a mobility aid to enter and turn around to use the lift buttons. Buttons are at accessible height.
- Doorways which are easy to open and have lever handles (doorways 850mm or wider when open and not heavy).
- An accessible public toilet which is unlocked.
- A wheelchair accessible toilet / shower and change room is available.
- At least one wheelchair accessible parking space with wheelchair accessible signage clearly displayed (International standards are 3200mm wide x 2500 mm high).
- Wheelchair accessible transport options available in the general vicinity (provide information on name of the operator, phone and website link to individual providers for private vehicles, community transport train, mini vans, hire cars, buses, taxis, ferry, tram, light rail etc in their access statement).
Physical – High support needs
Caters for people with high support needs who travel with a support person.
Access & Inclusion
An access and inclusion statement is available on the business website.
- https://potter-museum.unimelb.edu.au/visit/accessibility
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