puppets on a theme

A book that's been a big influence on artists Heather and Ivan Morison is Russell Hoban's 1980 novel Riddley Walker, which takes place 2000 years after a nuclear war. Civilisation has collapsed and the governing ideas of the society are transmitted by travelling puppeteers.

The Morisons are now devising their own puppet shows about what life will be like in 100 or 200 years' time. Heather Morison says,

'a lot of information we are getting at the moment about what might happen to us in the future and things you ought to do, it is just information. It just goes in one ear and out the other a lot. Unless it is made easy for you to do things then you don’t really bother. But if you hear a story it can enchant you and you can also tell it to someone else as well.'