AS LOYAL KIWIS WE CANNOT DESIRE is a new multimedia installation by Frances Libeau that explores the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. Through sculpture and audiovisual remediation of archival material, Libeau examines the fierce opposition the bill faced before its enactment, notably a petition organised by the conservative Christian group Coalition of Concerned Citizens (CCC).
Drawing on both institutional and personal archival records and technologies, Libeau considers the material histories of ideological transmission pertaining to the Law Reform. Libeau's research traces how governmental modes of communication (broadcasts, petitions, written letters) and radical threads of queer life (oral histories, queer organising, physical acts of resistance) served as channels for the dissemination and discussion of cultural rhetoric.
Situating Libeau’s enquiry is their autobiographical connection to the petition. Raised in the same Auckland suburb as CCC founders and property entrepreneurs Keith Hay and Bill Subritzky, Libeau reckons with the legacy of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Christian moral right and its relationship to the nationalistic imperatives of colonial capitalism. Critical to the work is an interrogation of the heteronormative sense of “home” in Aotearoa, to which the queer body and queer desire have posed and continue to pose a threat.
Frances Libeau is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Libeau’s work often explores the hauntological potentialities of found materials and possibilities for queering compositional and archival practices. Recent exhibitions include Lake of Wandering Spirits (Te Tuhi, 2026) and My cruel enemy grazes on my pain and feeds herself (RM Gallery & Project Space, 2024).
Frances Libeau’s presentation is proudly supported by The Chartwell Trust as part of The Changing Room 2026.
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