Ellie Harrison

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exhibition

  • 2015 Exhibition

    Big Bang Data

    3 Dec 2015
    Somerset House, London

  • 2015 Exhibition

    Laboro Ergo Sum

    7 Nov 2015
    amberPlatform, Istanbul (Turkey)

  • 2015 Exhibition

    For Love or Money

    Created in 2015 to highlight the main causes of Harrison’s breaches to her own Environmental Policy and the amount of carbon each produced, For Love or Money paved the way for The Glasgow Effect in 2016.

  • 2015 Social / Networks

    Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund

    Initiated by Harrison in 2015, the Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund (RRAAF) aims to be a new and autonomous funding scheme, which uses renewable energy to offer ‘no strings attached’ grants for art-activist projects in the UK.
    Project website

  • 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

    The Art of Self-Tracking

    18 Jun 2015
    QS15 Exposition, San Francisco (USA)

  • 2015 Exhibition

    Poetics & Politics of Data

    29 May 2015
    HeK, Basel (Switzerland)

  • 2015 Installations
    Life Raft in action at Venice Biennale in 2015

    Life Raft

    Designed as the final hole of Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf, Life Raft – a scale map of the UK floating in the adjacent canal – offers a safe haven to immigrant golf balls that can make the treacherous crossing.
    Project website

  • 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

  • 2015 Exhibition

    Time & Motion: Redefining Working Life

    29 Jan 2015
    HKW, Berlin (Germany)

  • 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 Installations
    Installation view in Talbot Rice Gallery

    After the Revolution, Who Will Clean Up the Mess?

    An installation / event completely contingent on the result of the Referendum on Scottish Independence on 18 September 2014. The four large confetti cannons installed inside Talbot Rice’s Georgian Gallery would only be detonated in the event of a ‘yes’ vote.
    Project website

  • 2014 Exhibition

    Playword

    25 Jul 2014
    NN Contemporary Art, Northampton

  • 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 Exhibition

    Progress Report

    Created in 2014 by analysing more than a decade of personal data, Progress Report reveals how, despite espousing “sustainability“, Harrison’s own lifestyle (measured in ‘work’ – no. emails sent and ‘leisure’ – no. lengths swimming) has simply been mirroring capitalism’s “growth fetish”.

  • 2014 Exhibition

    Art Lending Library

    3 May 2014
    Crown Street Gallery, Darlington

  • 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.

  • 2014 Exhibition

    Definite Motion

    12 Apr 2014
    Generator, Dundee

  • 2014 Performance / Events
    Ellie Harrison with Attempt at an Inventory… at The Briggait, Glasgow in 2014

    Attempt at an Inventory…

    Created specially for The Hospital for Dazed Art exhibition, for which artists were asked to revisit and rescue old or discarded artworks, Attempt at an Inventory… is Harrison’s attempt to take account of all the creative production she was responsible for in her formative years, exhibited alongside her first known self-portrait.

  • 2013 Exhibition

    Time & Motion: Redefining Working Life

    12 Dec 2013
    FACT, Liverpool

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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(opens in a new tab)

Ellie Harrison

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

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This weekend Wasps Artists' Studios - Hanson Street, Glasgow is celebrating its 25th anniversary! 🥳 I’ve been based here for sixteen of those years, since 2010. On 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟯 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿, 𝟭𝟭𝗮𝗺-𝟰𝗽𝗺 I’m opening my studio to visitors as part of the building’s special anniversary open studios event: waspsstudios.org.uk/news/hanson-street-studios-celebrates-25th-anniversary-this-october/ Please come down and say hello! @followers ...

2 weeks ago
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On Thursday night we launched the Get Glasgow Moving public transport campaign’s 10th Anniversary Exhibition at The New Glasgow Society 🙌 It’s only on until Weds 23rd Sept, so please make sure you visit! 👇

🗓️ Open every day until Weds 23rd September, 12noon-5pm
📍 1307 Argyle Street, G3 8TL

It’s been a total labour of love to bring this exhibition together – four days’ solid to install and a whole summer spent sorting through the archives and organising more than 240 photographs, sixty press cuttings, fifty films, alongside many old placards, banners and leaflets to the tell the story of our campaign over the last decade 🚍 🚇 🚆

If you don’t know much about Get Glasgow Moving or just want to find out how I’ve been spending a massive chunk of my time over the last 10 years as the campaign’s co-founder and chairperson – then please make sure you come along!

I’ll be invigilating from Monday – Weds, so come and say hi 😊

We are also selling our popular campaign t-shirts, designed by yours truly, for just £10 – so don't miss your chance to get one 👕

And thanks, as always, to Neil Scott for the wonderful photos!

Presented as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival 2026

#GlasgowDoorsOpenDaysFestival #GlasgowGoesOut #CulturalHeritage #GlasgowEvents #GDODF26 @followers
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3 weeks ago
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Opening this Thursday! 📢 Please don't miss this special exhibition I've curated to celebrate the Get Glasgow Moving campaign's 10th Anniversary 🥳 I've been working on it all summer and it's 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝘅 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 at The New Glasgow Society as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival #GDODF26 @followers 🙏 ...

4 weeks ago
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I was delighted to be back in Liverpool City Region this week for the launch of Merseytravel's new publicly-controlled bus network 🚌🥳 I staged 'Bus Regulation: The Musical' here in 2022 and 2023 as part of the campaign which led to Steve Rotheram's decision to become the 2nd UK city region to roll-out bus franchising, after Greater Manchester. Find out more here: ellieharrison.com/merseyside @followers ...

1 month ago
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After 10 years campaigning, it's just brilliant to see The Scottish Government finally taking action to regulate bus fares in Glasgow 👏 But their £2 fare cap will do nothing to improve services, create new routes or integrate timetables and tickets with other transport modes 🚍🚇🚆 For that we must bring our bus network back into public control. Please support Better Buses for Strathclyde to make it happen ✊ @followers ...

1 month ago
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Thanks so much to The National Newspaper for inviting me to discuss how to fix Glasgow's public transport on their podcast! 😄🚍🚇🚆 Listen to find out more about my campaigning with Get Glasgow Moving, Better Buses for Strathclyde, Bring Back British Rail & GoBike 👇 @followers ...

2 months ago
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It was great to meet Paul from PalFox Photography last month when he visited me at Wasps Studios Hanson Street to take these fab pictures 📷

My studio has always been more like an office than anything else, going back to my very first one in Glasgow in the Barnes Building at The Glasgow School of Art from 2008-2010. I bought ‘The Boss’ mug back then as I was interested in the aesthetics of the corporate world and exploring what it meant to be self-employed worker, making pieces like ‘The History of Financial Crises’ (2009), ‘Desk Chair Parade’ (2009) and ‘Desk Chair Disco’ (2011), and the ‘Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed’ (2011).

I’m not making much art these days as nearly all my time goes into local community activism, particularly with the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative which I helped get up-and-running during the pandemic, and with the Get Glasgow Moving public transport campaign which I co-founded in 2016.

Over the summer I’m preparing for Get Glasgow Moving’s 10th Anniversary Exhibition at the New Glasgow Society, which opens on Thurs 17 September as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival 2026.

I love using my creative skills to further causes that I’m passionate about. Over the years I've designed many campaign materials – including this ‘Trans-Clyde Links You Clyde-Wide’ T-Shirt, which is based on the original marketing for the Trans-Clyde integrated public transport network launched by the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Executive in 1979, the year that I was born.

The integrated public transport networks which most big city-regions had were wilfully destroyed in 1986 with the deregulation (and later privatisation) of buses. This was one of the most destructive of all Margaret Thatcher’s policies, and it is shameful that The Scottish Government has continued to maintain it for more than quarter of a century of devolution. With the Better Buses for Strathclyde campaign, we are doing all we can to get our region’s buses back in public control.

If you like the T-Shirt, come down to the exhibition in September and you’ll be able to get one there! And, if you'd like to have a nosey round my studio, I'm also planning to take part in the Open Studios at Wasps Artists' Studios - Hanson Street, Glasgow on Sat 3 October 😊 See you there! @followers
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3 months ago
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This 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟱 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 in Glasgow! 📢 I'm delighted to be talking about my work with Get Glasgow Moving & Glasgow Community Energy at the 𝘙𝘦𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘎𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘨𝘰𝘸? conference at the University of Glasgow 🎟️ Tickets are free, so come join us 👇 @followers ...

4 months ago
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Commodities

  • 4 Live Broadcasts DVD 4 LIVE Broadcasts DVD £20.00
  • The Quotidian Factor Badge The Quotidian Factor Badge £2.00
  • Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt £20.00
  • Hen Weekend Badge Hen Weekend Badge £2.00
  • Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt £15.00
  • Hen Weekend Bag Hen Weekend Bag £10.00
  • Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker £3.00
  • Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector Book Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector £10.00
  • Day-to-Day Data Book Day-to-Day Data Book £20.00

Contact

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  • Video Archive
  • Audio Archive / Podcast
  • Publications Archive
  • Events
  • ellie@ellieharrison.com

Small Print

  • Creative Commons Licence
  • Environmental Policy
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