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!

  • 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 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 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 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

  • 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.

  • 2011 Installations
    Installation view at Castlefield Gallery

    Austerity & Anarchy

    An installation which employs a spotlight and smoke machine to visualise and explore the correlation between cuts in public spending and instances of mass rioting on the UK’s streets.

  • 2011 Installations
    A Brief History of Privatisation installed at Watermans in 2011

    A Brief History of Privatisation

    An installation in which the oscillations in UK public service policy over the last century are re-enacted by an inner circle of electric massage chairs under the seedy glow of red, and then blue, neon.

  • 2010 Installations
    Detail of Press Release at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow in 2010

    Press Release

    Devised specifically for the context of the ‘degree show’. For the final three weeks of her Master of Fine Art course at Glasgow School of Art, Harrison made a conscious decision not to make any ‘work’, in favour of instead transforming her studio into a ‘press office’ and attempting to directly solicit the media coverage which many hope will come as a result of this much anticipated show.

  • 2009 Installations
    Toytown installed at the Newbery Gallery, Glasgow School of Art in 2009

    Toytown

    The sister installation to Vending Machine, this piece features a dilapidated 1980s kid’s car ride which starts up and offers people free rides when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed.

  • 2009 Installations
    Vending Machine installed at the Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art in 2009

    Vending Machine

    An installation for which an old vending machine is reprogrammed to release snacks only when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed.

  • 2009 Installations
    The History of Financial Crises installed at Mejan Labs, Stockholm in 2009

    The History of Financial Crises

    An installation in which the turbulent history of capitalism over the last century is re-enacted each day by a row of popcorn making machines.

  • 2009 Installations
    Transactions installed at Mejan Labs, Stockholm in 2009

    Transactions

    Developed to accompany The History of Financial Crises installation – for the duration of exhibition, Harrison sent an SMS message to the phone installed in the gallery every time she made an economic transaction. The Coke can dances with joy every time a message is received.

  • 2007 Installations
    Angel Row Jukebox installed at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham in 2007

    Angel Row Jukebox

    An interactive installation commissioned for the closing party of Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham. The Jukebox contained all the UK #1 hits which corresponded with the openings of 254 exhibitions held at the gallery over its lifetime. The audience were asked to punch in the code for the exhibition they first remembered visiting.

  • 2006 Installations
    Timelines installed at HeK, Basel in 2015

    Timelines

    For almost five years Harrison documented and recorded information about nearly every aspect of her daily routine. These laborious, demanding and introverted data collecting processes grew ever more extreme until she devised the ultimate challenge for Timelines – to attempt to document everything she did, 24 hours a day, for four whole weeks (26 June – 23 July 2006).

  • 2006 Installations
    Daily Data Display Room installed at Danielle Arnaud Contemporary, London Art in 2006

    Daily Data Display Room

    For the duration of the Day-to-Day Data exhibition at Danielle Arnaud contemporary art in London, Ellie collected information about 10 elements of her everyday routine. Each morning the results from the previous day were emailed to the gallery and used to reconfigure and adjust the 10 different objects comprising the installation. Over the course of the exhibition, the display aimed to test and visualise an experiment as to whether there was a correlation between different elements of this information.

  • 2005 Installations
    Daily Data Display Wall installed at Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham in 2005

    Daily Data Display Wall

    For the duration of the Day-to-Day Data exhibition in Nottingham and Portsmouth, Harrison collected data about 20 different elements of her daily life onto Daily Data Log sheets. Each morning the Log Sheet results were emailed to the gallery and used to reconfigure the 20 different items in the installation, so that it took on a slightly different appearance each day of the exhibition.

  • 2004 Installations
    Sneezes 2003 installed at Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham in 2004

    Sneezes 2003

    Throughout 2003, Harrison recorded the exact date and time of her every sneeze. For this solo exhibition at the Wallner Gallery in Nottingham, she transformed the gallery walls into a giant two-way timeline. Mini colour-coded prints representing each of the 318 sneezes were positioned around the walls to indicate the exact date and time at which they occurred.

  • 2003 Installations
    The Monthly Sculptures installed at Goldsmiths College, London in 2003

    The Monthly Sculptures Determined by the Daily Quantification Records

    Throughout 2003, Harrison also collected data about 14 different elements of her everyday life onto Daily Quantification Records. Each month this data was converted into a set of averages, which was then applied to a set of scales and systems to output the specifications for a monthly sculpture. The first six months’ worth of sculptures was installed at the 2003 Goldsmiths Postgraduate Degree Show.

  • 2002 Installations
    Mass = Energy = Time installed at Colony, Birmingham in 2004

    Mass = Energy = Time

    This kinetic installation uses two found weight mechanism clocks. The lead weights which are normally used to power the clocks have been removed and replaced by foods (bread and bananas) of the same mass. The clocks continue to work as normal – powered by the gravitational potential energy inherent in the foods. Originally installed at Goldsmiths College in 2002 and then at the Colony in Birmingham in 2004.

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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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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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3 weeks ago
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It was an honour to organise this event for the brilliant Govanhill International Festival 🙌 @followers

It was an honour to organise this event for the brilliant Govanhill International Festival and Carnival 🙌 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

3 months ago
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Published today! Check out The Artists Bonds 14th Annual Report, detailing our third best performing year with 3 cash prizes totalling £125 🥳💷 This means an annual payout of £0.79 for each or our 159 artist members 👏 @followers Read more here 👇
artistsbond.co.uk/14artistsbondreport2024.pdf

Published today! Check out The Artists' Bond's 14th Annual Report, detailing our third best performing year with 3 cash prizes totalling £125 🥳💷 This means an annual payout of £0.79 for each or our 159 artist members 👏 @followers Read more here 👇
artistsbond.co.uk/14artistsbondreport2024.pdf
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3 months ago
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This 𝗪𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝟲 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱, 𝟳𝗽𝗺! 📣 Don't miss our FREE Cultivating Community Activism: Learning from Cathy McCormack’s ‘The Wee Yellow Butterfly’ event as part of Govanhill International Festival 🙌 Listen to my interview on Sunny Govan to find out more! @followers tune in from 1:04:09 👇 ... See MoreSee Less

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Govanhill Festival 2025 preview interviews - 29 July 2025

www.mixcloud.com

3 months ago
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I was delighted to be interviewed about the Bring Back British Rail campaign for 14-year-old Riku Fryderyk's brilliant new documentary about rail re-nationalisation 🚉 Well worth a watch! 🙌 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

4 months ago
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