‘This is your new device. The purpose of this device has been re-defined, but this was gradual, so you did not notice. This device likes you. It excites with simplicity, it cuts, lifts and separates, then hollows out the centre, making ready for the enrichment mechanisms to enter…’ – Jennet Thomas, from the Prologue

Margaret Thatcher is the spectral protagonist in this dystopian folkloric work; she exists as an all-pervasive image burnt onto the collective memory of a culture that is sinister and psychedelic, ‘savage’ and ritualistic. The characters are released, and we follow two impoverished pilgrims, Glenda and Mary, through a red, green and blue broken landscape. Signs have collapsed and meaning has imploded: Mary needs to find a cure for her baby; Glenda wants to help, but appears to have another agenda. Their profound disorientation leaves them unsure of which route to choose. Red, blue, or green? All roads seem to lead to Blupool. There the device is to be renewed, and the fateful implosion occurs. The colours rotate, the fiction loops, and the pilgrims must start their search again.

Jennet Thomas is an artist based in London, whose primary medium is experimental narrative video, driven by a writing practice that sometimes manifests as performed monologues. In addition to the book of the same name, The Unspeakable Freedom Device is a solo exhibition and installation at the Grundy Art Gallery, July – August 2015.

The Unspeakable Freedom Device will be launched in at the Grundy Art Gallery on 3 July 2015, and available during a special symposium, on 4 July. Organised in association with Modern Culture, the participants in this event include: Martin Rowson, writer and theorist, Esther Leslie, writer and critic, Sally O’Reilly, art historian, Jennifer Thatcher and a range of other speakers exploring the artwork and themes of the exhibition.

For more information please visit: http://www.grundyartgallery.com/programme/forthcoming/