Le plus proche du paradis (The closest to paradise), The Moananui-a-kiwa Trilogy
The Moananui-a-kiwa Trilogy (2024-2026) by Fijian New Zealand artist Luke Willis Thompson is a series of three stand-alone moving image artworks developed over the past three years. In each film Thompson imagines a decolonial future for Oceania through the visual language of political theatre.
Thompson’s third and final chapter of this series has been developed especially for the Lyon Biennial 2026 curated by Catherine Nichols. Titled Le plus proche du paradis (The closest to paradise), this final chapter takes us to present-day Kanaky-New Caledonia, a French overseas territory and New Zealand’s closest Pacific neighbour.
The film approaches the pro-independence movement in Kanaky, which since the 1980s has been spearheaded by the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS). Le plus proche du paradis is set in the aftermath of a political and civil crisis. As a result of the Macron government’s controversial proposal to dissolve the Noumea Accord in 2021, which effectively halted the pathway towards the independence of Kanaky, a series of mass mobilisations and protests erupted in Noumea. Whilst the FLNKS leaders explicitly advocated for peaceful protests, nine of its leaders were charged for their roles in coordinating the uprisings and seven were imprisoned in mainland France pending trial. Despite the seriousness of the accusations, all charges were later comprehensively dismissed in the courts.
Le plus proche du paradis presents an intimate portrait of Frédérique Muliava, a leader and coordinator within the FLNKS party. The film consists entirely of Muliava delivering a haunting account of colonial brutality, as she recounts in forensic detail the procedure of her arrest, her transportation to mainland France, and her first days in solitary detention.
The new work is presented in the biennale alongside the two prior chapters in the series which also advocate for a decolonial future. The first, Whakamoemoeā (2025), was filmed in Waitangi New Zealand at the very site where Aotearoa’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was signed in 1840. Set two hundred years on from this monumentous event, Whakamoemoeā envisions a new constitutional transformation in Aotearoa being announced to the world, with real-life MP for Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Oriini Kaipara, cast as the spokesperson to deliver the official address entirely in te reo Māori.
Also set in the near future, the second, Soro (2025), imagines a reenactment of the 2021 Dawn Raids Apology, first delivered by the Jacinda Ardern government. Focusing entirely on a solitary NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) interpreter, Alan Wendt, while an inferred Prime Minister delivers the speech out of frame, Thompson imagines a bold and expansive set of reparations being delivered by a future New Zealand government. Aotearoa takes a stand to right the wrongs of the past, which are determined to be rooted in the fundamental injustice of colonisation.
Le plus proche du paradis, 2026
4k digital video (colour, stereo sound), 23 mins
Commissioned by The Wapping Project in partnership with the Biennale de Lyon for the 18th Biennale de Lyon, 2026, supported by Creative New Zealand, and the Gow Family Foundation
Soro, 2025
35mm film transferred to 4k video (black and white, silent), 12 mins
Commissioned by Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery, AUT Auckland University of Technology, Tāmaki Makaurau
Production supported by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s Niu Dawn Initiative, administered by Creative New Zealand;
the Gow Family Foundation; and Kodak Ltd.
Whakamoemoeā, 2025
4k digital video (colour, stereo sound), 21 mins
Commissioned by Megan Tāmaki Quenell for Sharjah Biennial 16 and produced by Ordinary Films and Kura Productions
All works courtesy of the artist, Coastal Signs, Auckland and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Cologne/Berlin
