Welcome to Helen Kirlew Smith’s website
Arts Advisor, Producer & Facilitator of arts and events in mixed use spaces and public places.
With compassion and care, breaking down the barriers for people to engage with art and new ideas is at the heart of what Helen does.
About
Helen has had the pleasure of working with brilliant artists and producers (both in the UK and NZ) for the last 30 years.
Having graduated from DeMontfort University, Leicester in the mid 1990’s with an honors degree in Live Art she co-founded the New Works Festival. The primary focus for this work was to promote and support people to present, explore and engage with the arts.
Alongside the Festival Helen co-established the National New Work Network (NWN) in the late 1990’s which connected and provided training for live art practitioners from around the country. Collaborating with Matt Adams from Blast Theory and Robert Pacitti on NWN led to her working with them both closely for nearly a decade until she moved to Wellington, Aotearoa.
Since then, whether as a Broker with Urban Dream Brokerage, a Producer at Letting Space or as the Place Manager at Wellington City Council’s Waterfront and City Parks Helen has had the pleasure of working with artists and producers to present events of all sizes.
Alongside Arts, Helen is passionate about designing and creating inspirational gatherings. Over the years this has resulted in her co-producing TEDxWellington and co-founding the charitable trust that it operates within (2012-2022). Another highlight was working with Enspiral to produce two one day conferences: OpenSource Open Society.
“Helen is a true collaborator and considerate leader. She had multiple key roles establishing the partnerships in the successful TEDxWellington events as well as building a community along with the foundational charitable trust. Her insightful guidance and considerate governance over the years was one of the reasons for the impact we had. Highly recommended human!” DK, Creative Producer – https://justadandak.com
July 2025