Coastal Signs and Michael Lett Gallery are pleased to present Mouvement des Malades, a solo exhibition of new work by Luke Willis Thompson at Michael Lett’s East Street gallery.

Mouvement des Malades is part of a wider and ongoing exploration by the artist into potential correlations between psychosis and decolonial thought. The central work, a three-channel moving image, remembers the Fijian church of the artist’s childhood.

Last year, Michael Lett Gallery extended an invitation to Coastal Signs to participate in the 2024 exhibition programme at their East St project space. The building on East St was formerly used both as a Samoan Church and as a Methodist community theatre, and echoes the architecture of Thompson’s subject.

For the duration of the exhibition, 3 East Street will be open: Thursday 11am-5pm, Friday 11am-5pm, and Saturday 11am-3pm.

Luke Willis Thompson and Coastal Signs would like to extend warm thanks to: Stephen Cleland, Father Liqorio Raulutegu, the Navunibitu Catholic Mission and Naiserelagi Village, Fiji, to Michael Lett and Andrew Thomas for hosting us at East Street, and to the private benefactors that made this project possible.

Luke Willis Thompson (b. 1988, Auckland) is a Fijian-New Zealand artist who lives and works between London and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Luke graduated with an MFA Elam School of Fine Arts University of Auckland in 2010 and completed his Meisterschule at Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main in 2015.

Notable solo exhibitions include: Hysterical Strength, GAMeC, Bergamo (2019)
_Human, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2018); Luke Willis Thompson, Adam Art Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington (2018); and autoportrait, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2017). Luke was awarded Aotearoa's Walters Prize for inthisholeonthisislandwhereiam (2013) and nominated for the Turner Prize in 2018 and won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2018 for autoportrait (2017).

Recently, Luke has taken a teaching position at Elam School of Fine Arts where he has delivered a critical race studies paper, and presented seminars to Harvard and Yale film and performance students. Luke is an artist board member of Coastal Signs, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

For more information, please contact Coastal Signs or Michael Lett directly.