To keep the project achievable, Pratt started out with cosmetic work; painting, cleaning and relining walls. She also cordoned off several areas and kept the public gallery downstairs in order to have a workable space. Pratt is thankful for help and guidance from her dad, an entrepreneur with experience in building restoration who helped revamp the Auckland Town Hall.
ideas, increasing productivity, and in becoming more financially independent.
“The community has been a huge support”, she says. “It’s such a big project so to have someone who believes you can do it is a big thing. As have the whole of Kawakawa. The community is really open to ideas and supporting people to do better. It’s obviously a big community asset. It’s been a huge growth curve.”
“It’s about creativity and doing things differently,” she says. “I’m a big believer in not squashing everyone into conformity. Creativity and the arts is an opportunity for people to grow and learn and share. It’s about evolving. Any space that helps people do that is really important.”
Now Kings Theatre Creative is the community hub of Kawakawa, hosting not just art exhibitions, but art classes and writing workshops for children and adults. The popular Hōtoke-winter programme provides opportunities for people to learn new skills for low cost or koha. Flash fiction writing, sculpture, poetry, open mic and documentary film making are all there for the taking, and the gallery is also home to children’s holiday programmes and even yoga. Another initiative is ‘Art Incubator’ a mentoring workshop for artists who are supported in developing their 16
The gallery now attracts 90,000 visitors a year and has featured over 500 artists, including those from Northland and those who whakapapa directly back to the North. Pratt has a creative team of over 10 volunteers and a part-time worker and in summer this swells to 20 volunteers.
Pratt grew up in Dargaville, where she did her schooling, then moved to Auckland to study advertising and marketing. She completed a Bachelor of Business focused on the creative industries. She now fits writing into her busy life, along with raising her two teenage sons and working alongside creative people and communities. Part of her journey is her involvement with the Hundertwasser Memorial Park, a $6.4 million community-led project which started in February. Called Te Hononga, which means "the joining together of peoples", it will consist of a rammed-earth building