Pleasant Island

Nauru is a small island-state in the Pacific, once called Pleasant Island by British whalers. Its history can be read as a parable of our modern age: following the colonial discovery of a vast reserve of phosphate in its soil, the island became one of the world’s richest countries, yet subsequently each plot of land, each garden, each corner of the island was dug up and mined, until nothing remained and all its natural resources had been depleted. After such ecological and economic ruin, what future remains?

Combining journalistic rigour with playful use of technology, Flemish documentary theatre makers Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere travel to Nauru to investigate the consequences of a world intent on endless growth.

Studio