VIRTUAL: Learning. Life. Work.

Abstract

This paper presents a case study demonstrating how the Māori concept of manaakitanga, understood as hospitality and care can be employed to establish a postgraduate studio environment that fosters connection and collaboration across diverse design domains. The whakataukī (proverb) He kai kei aku ringa means “There is food at the end of my hands.” In a learning context, this can be understood as taking responsibility for engaging with the resources you have been given, to develop your capabilities. This whakataukī acted as a provocation to consider how to shift the culture of the classroom, by reconsidering the types of knowledge that was being delivered, the way it was being shared, and, in particular, the way the classroom environment felt to a group of diverse learners. Connections to cultural practices aligned in some way to the production, processing and consumption of food were established throughout the 6-week studio, to scaffold design iterations and promote community building. Student’s were encouraged to consider how they could mindfully and ethically resource and sustain diverse design practices and were introduced to the indigenous concept of kaitiakitanga, which provided an example of a sustainable, ethical, and cultural context indigenous to Aotearoa concerning how we manage and care for resources in perpetuity. To that end, a rationing methodology was deployed that enlisted methods drawn from the culinary arts. These methods were situated within a matrix structured like a recipe that guided the development of weekly yields to braid pedagogical threads together. The paper will position the pedagogical underpinnings of the studio, discuss the studio work generated and student feedback on the design process.