Pleasant Island

In Pleasant Island, Silke and Hannes use their (gigantic) smartphones to deliver a dystopian report of their journey to Nauru, Pleasant Island, once a promising paradise, now prey to the rapidly changing climate.

Hidden in the Pacific Ocean lies the island of Nauru, or ‘Pleasant Island’. It is one of the smallest countries in the world. Nauru is often seen as a parable for our current world. The island was severely impacted by the effects of colonisation, capitalism, migration and ecological distress.

When enormous phosphate stocks were discovered there, the island was exploited under Australian supervision in no time. Until all natural resources were exhausted and nothing was left. Today, Nauru is best known for hosting Australian refugee detention centres in return for a large amount of Australian money. This sparked the government of Nauru to ban most journalists and researchers from entering the island in an effort to keep negative news from reaching the outside world.

Silke and Hannes were exceptionally allowed to enter the island for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2018. In this post-apocalyptic setting, they try to capture the historical, ecological and humanitarian exhaustion of the island and by extension of our entire planet. In Pleasant Island, Silke and Hannes use their personal smartphones to navigate the spectator through audio recordings and images from their research on Nauru. What prospects are left at a place that has been ecologically and economically destroyed and sinks deeper every year because of the rising sea level?

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with Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere dramaturgy Dries Douibi production kunstencentrum CAMPO co- production Kunstenfestivaldesarts, SPRING Festival Utrecht, Beursschouwburg, Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek, Veem House For Performance, Theaterfestival SPIELART München and  De Brakke Grond picture Vlad Sokhin