LATAI TAUMOEPEAU: My name is Latai Taumoepeau and I'm an artist. I'm a performance maker. And I'm a Punake which is in my own language, which refers to poetry, movement and music. And I mainly do movement or what I call body centre practise. QUESTION: WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE OF ART? Well, art is a funny word actually. But my first experience of what I experience now as an artist was actually as a child, I danced in my village with other people from my village. And that sensation of performing is something that I associate with being an artist and making performance. I think I was five or six years old then. QUESTION: WHAT WAS A TURNING POINT IN YOUR CAREER? Well, it was an event actually, that I feel is quite pivotal to my career in terms of making work that's about climate change. So in 2007, I attended a United Nations Climate Change Conference, and it really helped me question and frame my work, and the necessity and function of my work and my practice. And I feel that, that was a very pivotal time in my practice. QUESTION: HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU MAKE WORK? When I make work, I feel that I'm being my better-self. I feel like I'm being meaningful, and that's very important because it's my time and it's my life. And I want it to be meaningful in the greater scheme of things. And so, the way I make work and how I make work is all related to those things. Particularly, because I don't separate myself, my own personal body from this region, Oceania or the Pacific. And so, I feel like when I'm making work, it's coming from a very deep place, but also I'm looking for ways to connect to other people and other beings within in the same space. QUESTION: HOW DO YOU SURVIVE AS AN ARTIST? I survive as an artist, probably because I lived with my mom for the last few years and it's enabled me to live quite inexpensively. One of the ways that I survive is not just by making work, it's also by doing talks. There are other peripheral activities that help subsidise my earnings. Fortunately, I've been able to do various keynote, speeches, panel discussions. And I feel now that I've done quite a few of them, that they actually contribute to how I might survive. And also it's a really great way for me to reflect on practise as well when I get to talk about things. I got to a point in my practice where I didn't have to do another job, say. But it does mean that I have to be very careful, keep my living expenses really low, which sometimes is very difficult. No different to any other artists, I guess.