Lucy Holmes-Elliott: Queer Window Project

Everyone’s pals with someone who’s queer, says Lucy Holmes-Elliott, it’s just that we don’t always know it. That woman you work with – she is, and so’s the kid you chat to in the pub. They are ‘hidden in plain sight.’ Although visibility of bisexual, gay, transgender and lesbian people has definitely risen in recent years, they are still under represented – and so remain ‘other.’

Holmes-Elliott’s Queer Window Project, commissioned by LGBT History Month, aims to offer a window in on queer identity in Scotland. She has created a series of photographic portraits and drawings that will be shown around Glasgow in pubs, hairdressers and bike shops, during June and July. Subjects were selected through an open call in an attempt to represent the range and diversity of people in this strata.

Wary of ‘otherizing’ them by exhibiting solely in the rarefied space of the gallery, Elliott has taken inspiration from Philadelphia artist Zoe Strauss and installed the works around town, so you can get on your bike and seek them out or chance upon them at your leisure.

Perhaps better known as a filmmaker, her minimal outline drawings will be instantly recognisable to fans of Lock Up Your Daughters club night and zine, which she co-founded with her wife Sophie. A revolution among queer nights in Glasgow, the ‘hella gay dance parties’ and ‘queer faggy rag’ made it not just ok but actually cool to be gay. Elliott’s drawings feature on every flyer, her subjects the people she DJs and parties alongside.

Whether it’s how they own the decks or the way their trousers hang, Elliott captures an essential queerness in her subjects. Though – the Six Degrees of Gayness says – go see them and you’ll surely find they look like people you already know well, and love.