Lecture5:Manaakitanga,Conviviality & Relational Art

Our topic for today’s lecture was “MANAAKITANGA, CONVIVIALITY & RELATIONAL ART”. For my understanding of the word ‘Manaakitanga’, it means the way how you express love and mana towards people. “To exhibit mannakitanga is to raise one’s mana(manaaki) through generosity.”(Tau,2005) said Professor Manuka Henare.Ngapuhi. Mannakitanga consists of many important attributes such as showing the hospitality, mutual respect and generosity to the others.

Another word we also studied today was “conviviality”. The explanation of this word in the dictionary is sociable and lively;festive. In today’s lecture, this word is explained as convivial, austerity and eutrapelia. It is a sence of building a community which creates a space for people to communicate. They share their food, joyfulness and other enjoyments with others to build up a relationship such as friendship and connecting people from each other as a group.

This artist Felix Gonzalez- Torres, who is an Amarican artist produce many significant work. As in this work, he put the candies on the floor and allows the visitors to take it. The candy is sweet and people will be delighted to take some with them. This is an art work that is connecting with others not individual. Sometimes, Felix Gonzales-Torres’s work is advised a mapping of the experience on his sickness,AIDS. “The most pervasive reading of Gonzales-Torres’s work takes the processes his work undergo (lightbulbs expiring, piles of candies dispersing.ect) as metaphor for the process of dying.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Gonzalez-Torres) The visitors and the candies are connected and the candies also are related to Gonzales-Torres himself.