ABSTRACT. What can it mean to engage in public art performance practices that explore acts of kindness through the Māori concept of manaakitanga? Selected art practices of Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland artists Layne Waerea (2021), Jeremy Leatinu‘u (2021), Rebecca Ann Hobbs (2018) and Mark Harvey (2021) are reflected on here in relation to a perspective of manaakitanga. The contexts for these artworks are public spaces that continue to be subject to the dynamics of colonisation and perspectives of neoliberalism by the government and local municipalities (Bargh & Otter, 2009). To build on other discussions around kindness, this article weaves a discussion between perspectives on the conditions of possibility in these art-based performance practices in manaakitanga, concerning their potential for resisting colonisation and neoliberalism through alternative Māori economies.

Keywords: manaakitanga; Māori; art; performance; colonisation; neoliberalism

How to cite: Harvey, M. (2021). “Manaakitanga me te kōrero: Helping Hands and Conversations: Conditions of Possibility in Kindness in Live Art and Performance-based Art,” Knowledge Cultures 9(3): 139–157. doi: 10.22381/kc9320218.

Received 23 July 2021 • Received in revised form 10 September 2021
Accepted 1 November 2021 • Available online 1 December 2021