'You'll start to really unspool in a way that surprises you' (portrait of Nat Lall), colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

'The Slacker,' colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

The Thieves is a series of colour pencil drawings by Josie Perry and a hybrid-form social science fiction text by Francis Jones. The following images are from an exhibition at Glasgow's CCA Intermedia Gallery in February 2024, which also featured an audio work based on the text.

The story of Francis' text follows a commune living on the outskirts of a rapidly expanding neoliberal city, narrated by several individuals who have been unofficially exiled due to their refusal to conform to the city’s work standard, which rejects communality, compassion and pleasure. The narrators explain how they came to form the commune and imagine alternative means of living together. A publication presents the text alongside writing by Hussein Mitha, Gloria Dawson, Nat Lall and Isaac Harris, whose voices were heard in the exhibition audioscape at the CCA, and who are also visually depicted in four of Josie's drawings. These contributors were invited to join the project due to resonances between The Thieves and their own creative practices, and parts of the fiction have been loosely based on real friendships. In this sense, the project as a whole can be understood as analogous to the story’s narrative of sociality, and is a homage to queer and creative communities in Glasgow.

The publication features writing by Francis Jones, Hussein Mitha, Gloria Dawson, Nat Lall and Isaac Harris. Each copy contains 2 out of 4 possible postcard prints (each is a portrait of one of the writers). Printed in the CCA Publication Studio February 2024, with graphic design by Phoebe Kerr. Installation photos (top two images) by Sean Patrick Campbell.

'In my lower heart ventricle a small bead is nesting' (portrait of Hussein Mitha), colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

'Saint & Martyr', colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

'We will live in the unlasting spaces' (portrait of Isaac Harris), colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

'Shifts by Extractions', colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

'Maggot of Love' (portrait of Gloria Dawson), colour pencil on A2 paper, 2023
Photo by Sean Patrick Campbell

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