5 January 2016
Daily Mail (p.5)
An artist has been paid £15,000 of taxpayers’ money to not leave Glasgow for a year.
Academic Ellie Harrison was given the cash by the Creative Scotland quango after persuading it that staying in the city constituted a 12-month performance piece – even though she lives there anyway.
The Glasgow Effect project began at midnight on New Year’s Eve- and has already met with derision from many locals.
Miss Harrison, 36, is a lecturer in contemporary art practices at Dundee University.
Publicity for The Glasgow Effect says: ‘The experiment will … encourage her to seek out “local opportunities” – testing what becomes possible when she invests all her ideas, time and energy within the city where she lives.’
Creative Scotland insisted it ‘met the criteria for funding’, but Eben Wilson, of the campaign group Taxpayer Scotland, said it was ‘silly project, devoid of ambition’.
Miss Harrison was unavailable for comment last night.