'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 collaborative project by Josie Perry and Francis Jones, involving a series of colour pencil drawings by Josie and a hybrid-form social science fiction text by Francis. The installation images below are from an exhibition at CCA Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow (2024), in which the drawings were presented with an audioscape and publication.

The story of The Thieves 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. The publication presents Francis' text alongside writing by Hussein Mitha, Gloria Dawson, Nat Lall and Isaac Harris, whose voices were heard in the exhibition audioscape, and who are also visually depicted in four character portraits. 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 our queer and creative communities in Glasgow.

Installation images at the CCA Intemedia Gallery (Glasgow, 2024)
Photos by Sean Patrick Campbell

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), and has a glitter sticker on the front.

Printed in the CCA Publication Studio February 2024
Graphic design by Phoebe Kerr

'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