With ants, blooms and birds, museum rethinks uni smarts

The putrid stench of an endangered species known as the corpse flower is no deterrent for artist Ingela Ihrman.

The Swedish artist will emerge from a sculptural costume of the plant wearing a perfume of its rotting-meat scent, as part of the latest exhibition at The University of Melbourne's Potter Museum of Art titled A velvet ant, a flower and a bird.

The titan arum plant cleverly imitates the smell of rotten meat to attract pollinating insects, explained Ihrman, while humans try to be alluring in different ways.

"I think when you go to a party or on a date and you want to be attractive, sometimes it feels like you fail," the artist said.

"But it may depend on the one who comes, maybe sometimes it's right to have rotten perfume on."

The Potter Museum might be situated on the main campus on one of the most elite universities in Australia, but the exhibition explores intelligence as not solely the domain of humans, rather a trait shared by living things.

They range from flowers to the collective smarts of a flock of birds, and ultra-black velvet ants that can efficiently absorb light.

At a time when technology dominates how people conceptualise intelligence, there's a need to appreciate non-human wisdom, according to curator Chus Martínez.

The influential Spanish curator and theorist views digital technology as self-annihilating, and a medium that should not be viewed as more advanced than older, analog means.

"It's just complementary, it's a different material than clay, but it's a material as well - and in the end, we are here to form what we want to say together," she said.

Martínez delved into the university's collections to find just over half of the pieces on show, presented alongside a variety of new commissions.

These are on display across three floors, with highlights including hand-stitched textile and metal works by Teelah George, Tamara Henderson's blown glass flower lamps, and Noriko Nakamura's limestone sculptures.

Many artworks require a close look, such as ceramics by Pippin Louise Drysdale and Adrian Mauriks, or the late Malcolm Howie's illustrations of Australian fungi.

It's the Potter's second show since its reopening in May 2025 with 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art.

That exhibition, which celebrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and confronted the university's past collecting practices, saw more than 50,000 visitors.

"It was extremely important, (but) every show can't be that declarative rewriting of history," said museum director Charlotte Day.

While this exhibition is not as explicitly political, Martínez says she is driven by finding ways for art to regenerate democracy, with museum collections inspiring new ways of thinking.

"This is an amazing cognitive playground, there are very few spaces that you would be more free to connect, to engage, to interpret," she said.

The exhibition is free to enter and runs until June 6.