I’ve had a niggling feeling for a while now, that up until recently I had been the duff friend in some groups I created with. 

Someone I’d once looked up to called me expendable, noting that I would fade into obscurity without the support of others because I was, in their eyes, transient and directionless. I assumed at the time that these were just one person’s cruel thoughts. Since then I’ve been able to carve out my space in Aotearoa’s turbulent art landscape and my transient nature has offered me transformation. 

I’ve morphed and transitioned and morphed again, moving where I’ve wanted, and doing what I’ve wanted. This has been a revelatory experience and I have broken ground in spaces I never ever thought I would.

For a few people, my act of changing — of extending past their perceived limitations — came with betraying their secret expectation that I would stay the nervous, hapless, ugly, duff friend. 

As you can imagine, the thought of being looked on with disdain or considered undeserving of opportunity by those I considered peers threw me for a loop. It’s made me question the collaborations I’ve cultivated across time and my relationship to creative collaboration. 

How long have I been trying to settle this subconscious fear of being misinterpreted and abandoned? Have I been playing in bad faith, seeking connection as a means to affirm my own importance — that I am desirable, if not for my nature or my looks, then for my utility?

I think what I’m asking is: Am I as insecure as I fear I am?

Collaboration and creative collectivism are spooky. They require a level of vulnerability that I’m sometimes weary of sitting in. If this means revealing myself to be everything I was once described as, I’d rather not. I’m tweaking. Baring one’s soul is quintessential in connecting with other people, I know.

When I’m tweaking, I try to remember that I get to exist in community with others who believe in the importance of collective practices. In an era marked by disconnection and discontent, this paradigm is truly a lifeline. 

Despite my insecurities, I am privileged to have my practice deeply intertwined with other people. I’m honoured to share this privilege with the fiercely talented crew at Wheke Fortress. They remind me often of the immense strength and joy collaboration can bring. I’ve been given the space to explore every facet of my practice, with no pressure to shrink or censor myself. Without this safety net, I doubt I would have ever thought to investigate the complexities of what lies within the shadows of my own interior.

Every one of my past collaborations has been essential to the development of my practice. I’m grateful for each relationship that I’ve fostered, and the bridges I’ve burnt too. Right now, with those I’m currently in community with, I have never felt so held against the fear of being misrepresented. Nor have I been shamed for relying on the affirmations of others to feel good. But we always bring our past selves with us.

Being pulled into someone else’s perception of you can be dysregulating. It is often involuntary and insidious, but can also reveal a truth that may not be so digestible. It is clear to me that the aftershades of my maladaptive selves have persisted through even some of my most longstanding connections. 

It’s embarrassing and messy to admit, but the transient and directionless Manu of old isn’t all just the cruel thoughts of a mean person. Back then, I had a terrible self-image and needed collaborators to access my creativity. I felt incapable of creating by myself or even for myself. I didn’t trust my taste enough to venture out on my own. 

However, I had no qualms about asserting myself in collaborative spaces. I felt I had power here — something I would later realise was derived from a sense of being needed. This power would vanish with my partnerships, and at the end of projects the void in my chest would send me spiralling. 

At the time, I could only experience power as long as I felt needed and witnessed. For that reason, I was always willing to be at odds with myself or be the duff friend in order to have these murky internal needs met.

I can’t be the only person who’s transient by nature, or flaky even. People are constantly adapting and morphing to meet their own — or others’ — needs. When you exist in community, that can sometimes be the name of the game. If you exist in healthy partnerships you can trust each other to fall back or step up to support as necessary. Be fluid and flexible. Rinse and repeat ‘til you settle into a pattern that’s aligned with your personal processes. 

I’d like to believe that this is a practice I’m grounded in today; one that’s deeply embedded in the Indigenous frameworks I hold dear — manaakitanga and whakawhanaungatanga. It stands as a vital counterpoint to the neoliberal push for individualism — a force that isolates and undermines our collective nature, having us spinning out and disconnected from the whole. Or have you having a neurotic meltdown like I did.

Despite realising that some communities can no longer hold me nor I them, I’m trying my best to extend compassion to myself and everyone I’ve been in relationship with. No one’s motives are ever entirely pure. In the frazzled state I was in, I only ever tried to survive. Collaboration is tricky, and when you’re rangirua about who you are, everything can and will be pulled up from the psychospiritual crypts. 

I can’t not be in connection with others, so I’m learning every day to keep myself open. By being honest about these uncertainties and insecurities, I can only have faith that if I am around people who love and see me, I’ll be held.

When I let myself lean into this, I begin to see it for what it is: the mess, the fear and the trust that sustains community is divine and beautiful. 

A friend of mine told me about an acting workshop she attended where they were tasked to walk past someone and imagine they were holding something. They were given the option to hide or reveal their something when they passed one another. My friend had decided to hide hers and was later described as hostile. She was on guard and had closed herself off by hiding her thing. 

I think of this story a lot when I’m with others. I think about how quickly animosity can fester inside me when I do what my friend did; hiding my heart and growing paranoid, resentful, and clouded with self-doubt as a result. 

I’m meeting all those murky feelings with the absolute fact that I have been loved on and held by my community. This spiralling has been a live metabolising of the dull pains I’ve held on to and that have been inflamed. 

I consider this a necessary step in rebalancing the mamae so I can move in gratitude and hope. Collaboration has taught me more about myself than I could’ve ever imagined. I’ve seen what I needed to confront in myself, and in turn have realised the depths of my resilience. 

I am not who I was, nor will I remain who I am now. But I trust that this evolution, this transient nature, is part of something bigger. I carry the love and lessons of my communities with me, no matter where I go. I am learning to trust that my worth isn’t tied to how others perceive me or what I can do for them. Instead, it rests in the fact that I show up.

Here’s to leaning into love, letting the mess of community be what it is, and continuing onward with an open heart.