Of Us & Others is the result of The Alasdair Gray Archive’s inaugural visual art Creative Commission with Maya Rose Edwards, supported by The Edwin Morgan Trust and Creative Scotland.

Inspired by WWI “camouflage trees” – hollow structures used for covert observation – Edwards created two sculptural installations designed as spaces for live, anonymous conversations between LGBTQIA+ thinkers. These discussions took place across various locations in Glasgow and explored themes common to the works of Alasdair Gray and Edwin Morgan, including imagined futures, kinship, and queer identity. Notably, participants – including poets, artists, researchers, young people, and activists – engaged without prior acquaintance, connected only through the broader LGBTQ+ community.

In Edwards’s work, the camouflage tree becomes a symbol of safety and encounter – a site where queer kinship emerges, fleeting solidarities form, and truths are shared without the pressure of self-definition. The chosen Glasgow sites resonate deeply with Gray and Morgan’s literary landscapes, providing a rich backdrop for layered conversations that weave together past, present, and speculative queer futures.

Of Us & Others is a montage of voices, ideas, and places—held together by the structural metaphor of the camouflage tree and the resonant power of what remains unsaid.

With thanks to participants: Austin Agarwal, Dr Cole Collins, Domenico Di Rosa, Salma Francoise Faraji, Keava McMillan, Hussein Mitha, Michael Mullen, and Syd Sisson.