This is a project in collaboration with scriptwriter, Catherine Dyson. Catherine wrote a play for young and old called 'Transporter' - the unheard, unbelievable true story of a girl called Maya; forever thirteen, forever on the move. I created illustrations in response to Transporter for a graphic novel that would accompany the play itself.
Written and performed by Catherine Dyson, in collaboration with Andy Smith and Lewis Gibson. Funny, fearless and frightening, Transporter explores themes of identity, difference, conflict, and what it means to come or not come from somewhere. Transporter tells the story of Maya, a girl who is constantly on the move. We meet Maya as she stands on the threshold of a new house in an ordinary city. From this everyday moment an epic story is woven, spanning decades and continents. Maya – forever thirteen – is both ordinary and extraordinary; schoolgirl, time traveller, shaman. Tales of classroom conflicts, flights across deserts, ice cream dreams and thwarted revolutions weave together, and the local and the global, the personal and political collide.
Transporter was born out of conversations with young people from the city of Newport, South Wales. In a year that witnessed the Grenfell Tower fire, an unprecedented rise in homeless families in the UK, and entire populations on the move, together we considered the questions: What does home mean? Is there a safe place left on Earth? How do we navigate our way through a world that appears to be in ruins?
Illustrations for the Graphic Novel
Camden People's Theatre website
