Visions of Freedom

Visions of Freedom is a poetic sci-fi piece, tonally similar to Black Mirror or Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. It is inspired by the ritual of final meals on death row: food being a comfort, a pleasure and often tied to precious memories we hold near. Visions of Freedom cuts out the middleman of food and asks the question: what if prisoners were allowed access to a final memory prior to their execution?

Set inside a female prison in the distant future we follow three prisoners on death row, Chaser (35), Beats (22) and Heaven (68). In vignettes, through a highly poetic style we see what place they choose as their final destination and why.

Playwright - Lily Thomson

Lily Thomson (She/They) is an emerging artist, playwright and a poet from Naarm, Melbourne currently based in the Gadigal and Bidigal Lands of NSW. They work across many mediums from the written word to performance installations and enjoy cultivating experiences that focus on the poetic nature of memory for all ages.

In 2024 Lily graduated from NIDA with an MFA in Writing For Performance. Lily wrote and collaborated with the NSFA and School of Cybernetics in Canberra to make Imaginative Restoration, an interactive booth where users can creatively repair damaged film using AI. The findings from this process were presented at the Fantastic Futures Festival at the NSFA in 2024.

Lily was selected as one of 20 young playwrights for the National Studio Residency with ATYP. Her short queer play ‘YOU GIVE ME BUTTERFLIES’ was selected as one of ten works written on this residency to be performed at the Intersection Festival in 2025. Her piece was about the very true story of her trying to woo a crush with a very long short story where they stumbled across a magical place full of butterflies together.

In collaboration with composers from The Sydney Conservatorium and Opera Australia Lily wrote a libretto for MOTHER a series of four short opera, The Lullaby a dark fairytale investigating overcoming unthinkable thoughts as a mother through the lens of a dreamscape after a lullaby gone wrong.