Brendan Kitto HALL(S)

This series of photographs was made semi unconsciously.

While sorting through my photography prints I noticed that I had a collection of rural community halls from trips around Whanganui and its surrounding regions.

What drew my attention to them was that they were normally the biggest/prominent building or the only building in an area, and stood as some kind of landmark.

It was from there that I started to actively look for more halls that I may have missed along those frequent trips.

Even more than sports grounds, the local country hall greatly facilitated organised recreation in small-town and rural New Zealand

There was a burst of building from 1900 to 1930, then again in the 1950s when halls erected as war memorials received a government subsidy. Building a hall was as much a social event as a chore. It often began with fundraising, which might involve barn dances or a 'queen carnival' in which young women headed teams that competed to raise the most money. Working bees were usually followed by beers and good conversation.

(Text extract from Jock Phillips, 'Rural recreation - Country halls, 1890-1960', TeAra - the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)