Massey university CoCA - Off-site Exhibitions

Featuring - where we once stood and the sound of the past being sliced apart

Location: 26 Courtenay Place, Te Aro, Wellington

Property partner: Deermax Holdings

Dates: May 2026

Supporting our next generation of artists & makers is an important plank in our programme each year. This year we were pleased to be able to facilitate two group exhibitions into a newly brokered site, providing an excellent location allowing the students to showcase their work in an inspiring setting.

Where We Once Stood featured the work of Eliza Pudney, Syamila Hanifa, Marama Groot & Amber Harris. “Where We Once Stood” explores the fragile space between presence and absence, memory and material, belonging and distance. Through painting, installation, and photography, the exhibition examines how landscapes, objects and materials are embedded with emotional residue, with themes of displacement, longing, grief and cultural identity emerging through the material process itself.

The Sound of the Past Being Sliced Apart featuring Alex Hoare, Anthea Tucker-Baillie, Penny McCrostie and Shay Patel.. Eexploring the concept of memory as an "intangible Archive," where every individual acts as an instinctive archivist of their own experiences. Described as a site of transit, the project delves into the "nervous tension" of trying to preserve fleeting moments that are constantly being layered, ruptured, and recomposed. While every internal record is a unique composition built from universal sensory elements—like timbre, tone, and resonance—the project suggests that any attempt to decode or catalog these memories results in endless interpretations and imperfect facsimiles. Ultimately, it frames the act of archiving not as a search for facts, but as a deeply personal and uncontrollable process of ordering one's internal library.

Images: Flo Hilyer-Brandt + Artists own

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