Luke Shand

Digital photograph, archival posters/ ephemera, Inkjet print, A3 paper, paste

Luke Shand’s window installation Notice emerges from a residency with 16Collective exploring the queering of public space. Shand’s creative process was motivated by bringing hidden histories of queer life out of private “storage” and into the collective consciousness. The installation plays with the form of a community noticeboard, using photocopied Scottish queer archival materials—magazine scans, event posters, and protest imagery—to explore ideas of queer futures, safe spaces, and collective memory. Rooted in the aesthetics and politics of print culture, the installation reflects on the role of physical media in resisting digital censorship and sustaining community connection. The works transforms a long empty, disused noticeboard outside Erskine Arts space into a vessel for queer reclamation and repair.  

This work culminates months of embedded research, fieldwork, and community engagement. Collaborating with Erskine Arts’ youth group “The Crew,” Shand led Notice, a workshop reanimating forgotten histories through collective collage imagining queer futures in Scotland. Luke’s study of Scottish queer nightlife histories consulted researchers, artists, and archives including Dr Jeff Meek (of Queer Scotland), Steven Grainger, and the Glasgow Women’s Library to inform Notice as an evolving surface of memory.  

Artist Bio: Luke Shand is a Scottish artist with an MLitt in Painting & Printmaking from Glasgow School of Art (2024), after completing a Bachelors in Fine Art from GSA in 2023. Using painting and installation queer histories are reactivated through processes that bring together existing archival materials and auto-fictional elements. Through his work he attempts to enmesh remnants of the autobiographical with archival relics to inform new understandings of queer histories.  

With Special Thanks to:  Dr Jeff Meek (Queer Scotland Blog), The Bishopsgate Institute, Simon Eilbeck (Hot Mess), and The Glasgow School of Art Archives for Queer archival image sources for the billboard. Steven Grainger (poster from The Power from Things Not Declared) for Collaborative artwork included in the billboard. Hannah Turner for Photography and digital support. Erskine Arts and “The Crew” for their time and support.  
 
This project is curated and supported by 16Collective (formerly 16 Nicholson Street) and funded by Creative Scotland.