Caselberg Trust Creative Connections resident 2026 announced
Caselberg Trust Creative Connections resident 2026 – Ngaroma riley
Ngaroma Riley
Photo: Tui Hirabayashi
The Caselberg Trust announced today that its Creative Connections Resident 2026 will be Te Tuhi based artist and people connector Ngaroma Riley (Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri, and Pākehā).
Ngaroma is a founder of Te Ana o Hine, a wahine-led carving shed based at Te Tuhi in Tāmaki Makaurau, She began her carving journey making Buddhist statues while working in Japan. Since returning to Aotearoa in 2020, she has completed a Certificate in Whakairo at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. In 2022, she built a storehouse for a public installation in Kaitaia, and in 2025, she won the Molly Morpeth Canaday Major Award. She is known for her karetao (hand-carved puppets) and love of chainsaws.
Whilst on her 3-month Caselberg Trust Creative Connections residency between February and April 2026 Ngaroma will be researching whakapapa connections in Dunedin—particularly those relating to objects donated to the Otago Museum by her great-grandmother, Susan Graham, and to furniture carved by her great-grandaunt, Phoebe Graham. Ngaroma, who is also a carver, will hold soap-carving workshops during her residency.
Ngaroma says “I am delighted to be offered the residency at the Caselberg House in Broad Bay. Is an opportunity that allows me to reconnect with Ōtepoti and Ōtākou—places that hold deep personal and ancestral significance for me. It feels like a homecoming.”
The 3-month long Caselberg Trust Creative Connections residency started in 2012 and is specifically targeted for projects that reach out and make links across a variety of creative media, and professional disciplines, and/or to communities relevant to the planned project. Recent Creative Connections Residents have been Bridget Reweti (2019), Lucy Marinkovich (2021), Sarah Hudson (2022), Alison Isadora (2023),, Katie Breckon (2024), and Jess Nicolson (2025).
The Caselberg Trust purchased the Broad Bay, Dunedin home of the late John and Anna Caselberg in 2006, with the aim of hosting creative residencies in the house. Since inception, the Trust has held a variety of creative projects and events, as well as hosting several well-known New Zealand writers and artists at the cottage.
Caselberg Trust contact - Trustee Robert West at info@caselbergtrust.org for further information, or www.caselbergtrust.org.
Contact Ngaroma at email – ngaroma@me.com
Instagram – ngaroma_riley
Links to further information about Ngaroma and her work -
The Spin off:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/27-09-2025/holding-space-the-work-of-ngaroma-riley
Portrait of an Artist as a Karetao: