The Gray Commissions Series is a partnership between Creative Writing at the University of 海角论坛 and the Alasdair Gray Archive. Creative practitioners are commissioned to respond to an element of Gray's work, practice or approach to produce a new piece of work meaningfully connected to Gray's practice, but standing alone as a work of art in its own right.
This approach is rooted in the fact that many of Gray鈥檚 greatest works across the visual and literary arts were a creative response to existing works. Gray鈥檚 most famous quotation, for example - 鈥榃ork as if you live in the early days of a better nation鈥� - was adapted from a poem by the Canadian poet Dennis Lee. His murals often responded to the Book of Genesis, populating the Garden of Eden with ordinary Glaswegian faces. In Lanark, the frontispiece was a Scottish reimagining of the Abraham Bosse frontispiece for Thomas Hobbes鈥� Leviathan (1651).
Throughout his working life, Gray sought to celebrate and declare his influences, seeing them as an integral part of all making. Similarly, we encourage and support artists to creatively respond to Gray鈥檚 oeuvre, taking inspiration from Gray鈥檚 work, but making new work of their own, that can stand alone.