Caselberg Trust Creative Connections resident 2025 announced

Caselberg Trust Creative Connections resident 2025 – Jess Nicolson

Jess Nicholson

The Caselberg Trust announced today that its Creative Connections Resident 2025 will be Ōtepoti/Dunedin ceramic artist Jess Nicolson (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā). Originally from Whakatāne, Jess is an artist whose practice focuses on cultural and environmental sustainability. They incorporate local uku, kōhatu, sand, and ash into their work to connect with their Kāitahutaka and te taiao. Whilst on their 3-month Caselberg Trust Creative Connections residency between March and May 2025, Jess will be working towards three main outcomes – finding and testing local Broad Bay materials for ceramic use and catalogue their findings to share in a workshop with the whānau of Ōtākou marae.

They will also make a collection of works using those materials and exhibit them, as well as hosting a talk with Dunedin School of Art ceramic students about using local materials in ceramics with respect to Te Tiriti and mana whenua.

Jess also plans to connect with experts from the Geology Department of Otago University for help to analyse and identify the materials they use, as well as using this knowledge to find the te reo Māori names of the materials so I can acknowledge them in both my research and my final works. Jess says “The materials used to make ceramics have always been under our feet, but how can we, as ceramic artists, learn about, connect to, and use those materials in a way that is culturally and ethnically sustainable? As a ceramic artist, I strive to avoid the unnecessary use of materials that are mined and imported from overseas - especially when many of them are linked to unethical work conditions and human rights abuses. Instead, my practice focuses on what we have available to us - right here - on our whenua and how we can build and share knowledge about these materials in a way that is respectful of mana whenua and te taiao”

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), and Katie Breckon (2024).

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 or mobile 027 608 0641 for further information, or www.caselbergtrust.org.

Contact Jess at email – sick.ceramics@hotmail.com