On the invitation of Christina Barton, Adam Art Gallery Director, writer Anna Sanderson and photographer Gavin Hipkins, together with designer Philip Kelly produced a suite of 30 new works based on the buildings, activities and history of the Karori Campus which housed the Faculty of Education. These works were commissioned for the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection to commemorate the site and its history, and to respond to the site, its contents and surroundings at the point when the University decided to relocate its staff and students to its main Kelburn Campus, mothballing the site indefinitely.

The exhibition presented this new body of work along with a selection of key items from the College of Education collections curated by Collection Manager Sophie Thorn, including examples of the ceramics collection that was amassed by past staff of the College.

Anna Sanderson (b. 1970, Auckland) is a writer based in Wellington. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Auckland and completed her PhD in creative writing at Victoria University of Wellington in 2016. She has been writing since 1994 when she co-founded Monica, a magazine of art criticism; since then she has authored many texts elucidating the work of artists. In 2006 Victoria University Press published her collection of essays, Brainpark, and in that year her essay, ‘Mrs Yang’ won the Landfall Essay Prize. She plans to publish her current research on art education in New Zealand in book form.

Gavin Hipkins (b. 1968, Auckland) is a highly-regarded photographer and film-maker. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia. He is currently Associate Professor at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Hipkins has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows throughout New Zealand and internationally. Recent works have been shown at the New Zealand International Film Festival, the Edinburgh Art Festival, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and the Jewish Museum, New York. A major survey of his practice is on show (from 25 November) at the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt.

Philip Kelly (b. 1963, Masterton) studied Visual Communication Design at Wellington Polytechnic. His work encompasses graphic design, art direction, and photography with a specialist interest in the visual arts and music. He has worked internationally for extended periods and currently resides in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Arts-based projects include Mana Tiriti (1990) at City Gallery Wellington; Art Now (1994) for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; We Will Work with You – Wellington Media Collective 1978–1998 (2013) at the Adam Art Gallery, and Lisa Reihana: Emissaries (2017) for the 57th Venice Biennale. As a designer, Philip actively collaborates with Gavin Hipkins, most recently designing the publication Gavin Hipkins: The Domain published by Dowse Art Museum and Victoria University Press (2017).

What Remains was made possible by the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection Funding Trust.

This exhibition was staged concurrently with Apparitions, Future Islands: The New Zealand Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, and From the College Collection.