Ellie Harrison

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  • 2023 Exhibition

    Bus Regulation: The Musical (Merseyside)

    15 Jul 2023
    The Black-E, Liverpool

  • 2023 Exhibition

    Bus Regulation: The Musical (Strathclyde)

    28 Jan 2023
    Platform, Glasgow

  • 2022 Performance / Events
    Bus Regulation: The Musical staged at the Bluecoat on 13 November 2022

    Bus Regulation: The Musical (Merseyside)

    The final part of Harrison’s Bus Regulation: The Musical Trilogy – inspired by the 1980s hit musical ‘Starlight Express’ – re-enacts the history of public transport provision in the Merseyside region from the post-war period to the present day… on roller skates!

  • 2022 Performance / Events
    Bus Regulation: The Musical staged at CCA Glasgow on 24 April 2022

    Bus Regulation: The Musical (Strathclyde)

    The second iteration of Harrison’s Bus Regulation: The Musical – inspired by the 1980s hit musical ‘Starlight Express’ – re-enacts the history of public transport provision in the Strathclyde region from the post-war period to the present day… on roller skates!

  • 2019 Performance / Events
    Bus Regulation: The Musical staged at Manchester Art Gallery on 28 September 2019

    Bus Regulation: The Musical (Greater Manchester)

    Inspired by the 1980s hit musical ‘Starlight Express’, this performance / event re-enacts the history of public transport provision in Greater Manchester from the post-war period to the present day… on roller skates!

  • 2018 Performance / Events

    The Elephant in the Room

    As part of Panic! It’s an Arts Emergency Harrison was commissioned to make a new work using their research into inequality in the arts as a starting point. In April 2018, Harrison invited 50 participants from the Creative & Cultural Industries and beyond to take part in a Power & Privilege Workshop in London, to explore how these hidden forces in society affect all our lives.

  • 2015 Performance / Events
    Darren Johnson AM hosts a discussion

    This Is What Democracy Looks Like!

    We live in a liberal democracy, yet how much power do we really have to decide the direction of our country? “This Is What Democracy Looks Like!” gives you the opportunity to meet & greet your newly elected politicians at a roving roundtable discussion upon a bicycle built for seven. Hop on, decide on your direction and then travel together through the Olympic Park whilst discussing the issues that matter to you with the people in power.

  • 2015 Performance / Events

    There’s nothing More Unequal than Equality amongst Unequals

    A performance / installation exploring the different interpretations of the concept of ‘equality’ favoured by different parts of the political spectrum. On Friday 3 July 2015, a diverse group of six people took part in a simple performance at g39 in Cardiff – standing on a series of special plinths designed to raise each person up to an equal level, so that together they formed a perfect line.

  • 2015 Exhibition

    MONEY M€AL

    Harrison collaborated with artist Emily Furneaux to facilitate this discussion event about our relationships with money, as part of Glasgow Open House Art Festival in 2015.

  • 2015 Performance / Events
    Zombies walk through Birmingham City Centre in April 2015

    High Street Casualties: Ellie Harrison’s Zombie Walk

    A performance / event in collaboration with Ort Gallery staged on Birmingham’s busy shopping streets. Dressed as “zombie employees”, more than 60 participants helped to map the former locations of thirteen of the big retail chains which have disappeared from our high streets since the start of the financial crisis in 2008.
    Project website

  • 2015 Performance / Events
    Consensus decision-making facilitated by Tripod

    Dark Days

    An ‘experiment in communal living’, this event offered one hundred participants the unique opportunity to stay the night in the great hall of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow as part of a pop-up community.
    Project website

  • 2014 Performance / Events

    The Global Race

    The Global Race is an absurd vision of an Olympic games of the future, in which the brilliance of human ‘innovation‘ means we no longer need to break a sweat! At an athletics track in central Berlin, a group of ‘elite athletes’ and members of the public competed in a series of races on Segways.

  • 2014 Exhibition

    Anti-Capitalist Aerobics

    Re-staged during Gustav Metzger’s Facing Extinction conference on 7 June 2014, Anti-Capitalist Aerobics engages delegates in an energy intensive workout in order to expose some of the fundamental contradictions in the way we live our lives. (Timecode 02:38-10:20)

  • 2014 Performance / Events
    Projection screen in living room for event in April 2014

    Transition Community of One

    Devised in 2014 in response to Glasgow Open House Arts Festival, this special event at Harrison’s flat in Glasgow aimed to expose the paradox at the heart of her lifestyle and challenge her actually existing ‘socialism in one person’. Monthly screenings continued in 2016 as part of The Glasgow Effect.

  • 2014 Internet / Broadcasts

    Ellie & Oliver’s Long Distance Relationship

    For Glasgow Open House Arts Festival 2014, Harrison & her former flatmate Oliver Braid reunited to present two special editions of their popular radio show, as part of three interlinked projects taking place over two weekends, across both their new residences in the west and east of the city.

  • 2013 Performance / Events

    Anti-Capitalist Aerobics

    Originally created as a disruption during Invisible Dust’s Ways of Seeing Climate Change conference on 30 October 2013, Anti-Capitalist Aerobics engages delegates in an energy intensive workout in order to expose some of the fundamental contradictions in the way we live our lives.

  • 2013 Performance / Events

    The Other Forecast

    Recorded LIVE in front of a green screen, Harrison’s The Other Forecast offers her summary of the absurd consequences of capitalism, as a warning about the future we are heading towards if the system continues unchecked. Broadcast on the Big Screen at MediaCityUK in November 2013 as part of The Other Forecast project – a collaboration between Harrison & John O’Shea.
    Project website

  • 2012 Internet / Broadcasts

    Friendship Festival

    For Glasgay! 2012, Harrison & her flatmate Oliver Braid presented Friendship Festival. Building on the success of their popular radio show, they invited six other friendly duos with intimate and provocative thoughts to share with the world, into their home for a series of weekend radio show ‘takeovers’.

  • 2012 Installations
    The Redistribution of Wealth installed at Tate Britain in 2012

    The Redistribution of Wealth

    Installed in Tate Britain’s Historic Collection Room, this piece retells the history of UK government spending on the arts from the birth of the ‘Council for the Encouragement of Music & the Arts’ in 1940, right up to the present day climate of cutbacks.

  • 2012 Exhibition

    Ellie & Oliver Show

    3 Aug 2012
    Edinburgh Art Festival

  • 2012 Exhibition

    Ellie & Oliver Show

    20 Apr 2012
    Glasgow International

  • 2011 Performance / Events

    Relentless Innovation

    Devised by Harrison for the The List Hot 100 Party at the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh after being voted No.93 in this annual list of Scotland’s ‘creative talent’. A ‘propaganda striptease’ of sorts, this artist’s talk / performance attempts to address the relentless innovation cycles such hitlists celebrate, and to explore the detrimental impact this obsession with the new might have on our mental health and the world around us.

  • 2011 Internet / Broadcasts

    Best of the Rest

    The final instalment in her series of 4 LIVE Broadcasts made over the course of a year (December 2010 – November 2011). Harrison draws on recurring themes from her previous broadcasts, to introduce the ideas behind Oliver Braid’s exhibition I’ll Look Forward To It and tell the story of her own work-life successes and failures in 2011. (Duration: 27:50)

  • 2011 Performance / Events

    Desk Chair Disco

    Ellie Harrison & Adele Prince (Sports Day) staged the first ever Desk Chair Disco in Newcastle upon Tyne on Friday 4 November 2011. City dwellers were offered the opportunity to redress their work-life balance by reclaiming their ordinary office furniture and taking it out on the town. As part of Wunderbar festival, Sports Day were invited to take over an empty office unit in the Pandon Building and put on this ‘roller disco with a difference’. The evening featured disco lights, DJ sets, live music and daring Desk Chair Derby displays courtesy of the Newcastle Roller Girls.

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News

Ellie Harrison is an artist & activist based in Glasgow (UK). In 2023 she won the Stephen Fry Public Engagement Award for her ‘Bus Regulation: The Musical’ Trilogy in Greater Manchester, Strathclyde & Merseyside (2019 – 2023).
In 2021 the Second Edition of Harrison’s book The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint was launched at the UN Habitat’s Innovate4Cities conference to mark the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, and chosen by the Ecologist for the Resurgence Book Club. Her Early Warning Signs were also exhibited at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library during COP26 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the project.
Harrison’s Vending Machine continues to feature in the 😹 LMAO exhibition exploring humour in data visualisation at the Open Data Institute in London.

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Ellie Harrison

Ellie Harrison

Artist, activist & author of 'The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint' 📚

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"We need The Scottish Government to support our transport authority, SPT, to bring the bus network back into public control, so they can deliver a fully-integrated, accessible and affordable public transport network across the region like Greater Manchester’s new ‘Bee Network’, or the recently released plans for South Yorkshire’s ‘People’s Network’" — Ellie Harrison

I was delighted to contribute to Gerry Hassan's article for Bella Caledonia about 𝘈 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘨𝘰𝘸 👏 Read online here 👇
bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/03/31/time-for-a-new-deal-and-vision-for-glasgow @followers
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2 weeks ago
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Calling all A-N members! Don't miss this online artist's talk and workshop on '𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲' which I'm co-hosting this Thursday 2 April, 11am-1pm 🌍 Find out more 👇 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

3 weeks ago
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Are you in Glasgow t

Are you in Glasgow this evening? Come along to this free screening of the brilliant POWER Film at The Glasgow School of Art 👇 I'll be introducing the event, talking about my work with Glasgow Community Energy and chairing a Q&A with artist and filmmaker Hilary Powell 😊 @followersSave the date! 🌞 We're delighted to be collaborating with Friends of the Earth Scotland to bring you Turning homes into renewable Power Stations: film screening & Discussion 👇
🗓️ Thurs 12 March 2026, 5:30pm
📍 Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art
🎟️ Book free tickets: powerstationGSA.eventbrite.com @followers
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1 month ago
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It’s this blatant injustice that motivates all my campaigning 😡 Why should people in the poorest parts of Glasgow have to pay 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 for an essential public service as bankers in the City of London? Shame on The Scottish Government for presiding over this system for more than 25 years! @followers ... See MoreSee Less

3 months ago
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Ten years ago today, I was just beginning my year-long durational performance #TheGlasgowEffect which was to become one of the most controversial publicly-funded artworks that Scotland had ever seen.

Part psychological experiment, part protest, part strike, for the whole of 2016, I vowed not to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except my bike.

I described my experience of starting #TheGlasgowEffect, including being at the centre of the social media stooshie it provoked, in ‘When the Chips Hit the Fan’ – Chapter 5 of my book ‘The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint’ published by Luath Press 📚

We have just printed a newly updated version of the Second Edition, so do have a read if you’d like to be transported back to that moment in January 2016... Find out more at: ellieharrison.com/book @followers
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3 months ago
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It's been brilliant working with Metro Map Design to produce Get Glasgow Moving's new film setting out our vision for the new #ClydeMetro integrated public transport system 🤩 Check it out here 👇 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

4 months ago
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🚶🚲🚍🚇🚉 I was honoured to be invited to discuss my activism with Bring Back British Rail, Get Glasgow Moving & Better Buses for Strathclyde at ETF's 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 conference at KVS Brussels 🙌 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

4 months ago
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Why are we still waiting for better buses? 🚌 Check out this brilliant new animation by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee graduate Sooz Reilly which we launched this week as part of the Better Buses for Strathclyde campaign. Please take two minutes to 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗠𝗦𝗣𝘀 to demand action 👇 @followers
📨 betterbuses.uk/strathclyde/#email
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6 months ago
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Commodities

  • Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker £3.00
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