Latai Taumoepeau makes live-art-work. Her faiva (body-centred practice) is from her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace Sydney, land of the Gadigal people. Taumoepeau centers Tongan philosophies of relational vā (space-time); cross-pollinating ancient and everyday temporal practice to make visible the impact of climate crisis in the Pacific.

In the dystopian performance The Last Resort, Taumoepeau and fellow artists don brick sandals and wield 'ike (traditional Tongan mallets) typically used to beat mulberry bark for tapa cloth. Here, they shatter glass bottles, a stark metaphor for the fragility of saltwater ecosystems and Pacific Island communities. Their actions underscore the emotional and geopolitical toll faced by Pacific peoples as rising sea levels, driven by melting glaciers, threaten their homes, and force the prospect of displacement.

Ocean Island Mine sees the artist shoveling a thousand kilograms of melting ice from one pile to another. The work references the colonial phosphate extraction from Ocean Island, Christmas Island, and Nauru. The extraction, intended for making fertilizers for farming, has gone so far as to make the islands nearly uninhabitable, while also contaminating the water, leading to the migration of Pacific Islanders.

Taumoepeau has presented and exhibited across borders, countries, and coastlines, including at Oceanspace, Venice Biennale satellite (2024); Sydney Biennale (2020); Sydney Opera House (2023); Serpentine Galleries, London (2020); among others.