Ellie Harrison

  • About
  • Work
  • Search

Sports Day

  • 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.

  • 2009 Performance / Events

    Desk Chair Parade

    On Sunday 2 August 2009, Ellie Harrison & Adele Prince (Sports Day) staged the inaugural Desk Chair Parade took place in Manchester as part of We are the Champions – Castlefield Gallery’s 25th Anniversary. A group of willing volunteers – office workers, shoppers and gallery goers alike – embarked on a magnificent adventure, freewheeling through the streets on ordinary office chairs.

  • 2009 Newsletter

    Desk Chair Parade (Castlefield Gallery)

    30 Jul 2009

  • 2007 Media

    State of the arts

    19 Sep 2007
    Time Out London (p.16)

  • 2007 Performance / Events

    Olympic Ring Doughnut Eating Contest

    Harrison collaborated with Adele Prince as Sports Day on the Olympic Ring Doughnut Eating Contest on Saturday 15 September 2007 at Burgess Park in south London as part the second Artists’ Sports Day organised by Grunts for the Arts. The Artists’ Sports Days are organised as a protest against the recent siphoning off of 35% or the Arts Council Grants for the Arts funds in order to pay for the 2012 Olympics.

  • 2006 Media

    Impact of Networking

    1 Jul 2006
    a-n Collections (p.1)

  • 2006 Performance / Events

    Bouncy Boxing Championships

    Ellie Harrison & Adele Prince collaborated as Sports Day on several performance / events with a sporting theme from 2006 – 2009. They made their first public outing hosting Bouncy Boxing Championships the NAN-NANA – New Adventures in Networking event held in Nottingham on 28 – 30 April 2006. 16 lucky competitors were chosen from amongst the 60 attending delegates to take part in the contest. Four nail-biting, knock-out rounds later and a champion emerged – Paul Luckraft of The Royal Standard, Liverpool was awarded much sought after ‘silver glove’ trophy.

    Project website

  • 2006 Media

    The Loneliness of the Long Distance Logger

    1 Feb 2006
    Cracked Actor

  • 2006 Media

    Sports Day

    1 Jan 2006
    a-n Magazine (p.25)

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 โ€“ 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 ๐Ÿ˜น LMAO exhibition exploring humour in data visualisation at the Open Data Institute in London.

Cover for Ellie Harrison
Page likes: 3,003
Ellie Harrison(opens in a new tab)

Ellie Harrison

(opens in a new tab)

Artist, activist & author of 'The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint' ๐Ÿ“š

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment

On Thursday night we launched the Get Glasgow Moving public transport campaignโ€™s 10th Anniversary Exhibition at The New Glasgow Society ๐Ÿ™Œ Itโ€™s only on until Weds 23rd Sept, so please make sure you visit! ๐Ÿ‘‡

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Open every day until Weds 23rd September, 12noon-5pm
๐Ÿ“ 1307 Argyle Street, G3 8TL

Itโ€™s been a total labour of love to bring this exhibition together โ€“ four daysโ€™ 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 ๐Ÿš ๐Ÿš‡ ๐Ÿš†

If you donโ€™t know much about Get Glasgow Moving or just want to find out how Iโ€™ve been spending a massive chunk of my time over the last 10 years as the campaignโ€™s co-founder and chairperson โ€“ then please make sure you come along!

Iโ€™ll be invigilating from Monday โ€“ Weds, so come and say hi ๐Ÿ˜Š

We are also selling our popular campaign t-shirts, designed by yours truly, for just ยฃ10 โ€“ so don't miss your chance to get one ๐Ÿ‘•

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
...

2 days ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

1 CommentsComment on Facebook

Opening this Thursday! ๐Ÿ“ข Please don't miss this special exhibition I've curated to celebrate the Get Glasgow Moving campaign's 10th Anniversary ๐Ÿฅณ I've been working on it all summer and it's ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—น๐˜† ๐—ผ๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ป ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐˜€๐—ถ๐˜… ๐—ฑ๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ at The New Glasgow Society as part of Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival #GDODF26 @followers ๐Ÿ™ ...

7 days ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

0 CommentsComment on Facebook

Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment

I was delighted to be back in Liverpool City Region this week for the launch of Merseytravel's new publicly-controlled bus network ๐ŸšŒ๐Ÿฅณ 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 ...

2 weeks ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

5 CommentsComment on Facebook

Play

After 10 years campaigning, it's just brilliant to see The Scottish Government finally taking action to regulate bus fares in Glasgow ๐Ÿ‘ But their ยฃ2 fare cap will do nothing to improve services, create new routes or integrate timetables and tickets with other transport modes ๐Ÿš๐Ÿš‡๐Ÿš† For that we must bring our bus network back into public control. Please support Better Buses for Strathclyde to make it happen โœŠ @followers ...

3 weeks ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

2 CommentsComment on Facebook

Video thumbnail

Thanks so much to The National Newspaper for inviting me to discuss how to fix Glasgow's public transport on their podcast! ๐Ÿ˜„๐Ÿš๐Ÿš‡๐Ÿš† Listen to find out more about my campaigning with Get Glasgow Moving, Better Buses for Strathclyde, Bring Back British Rail & GoBike ๐Ÿ‘‡ @followers ...

2 months ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

0 CommentsComment on Facebook

Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment
Image attachment

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 ๐Ÿ“ท

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 โ€˜The Bossโ€™ 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 โ€˜The History of Financial Crisesโ€™ (2009), โ€˜Desk Chair Paradeโ€™ (2009) and โ€˜Desk Chair Discoโ€™ (2011), and the โ€˜Work-a-thon for the Self-Employedโ€™ (2011).

Iโ€™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 Iโ€™m preparing for Get Glasgow Movingโ€™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 Iโ€™m passionate about. Over the years I've designed many campaign materials โ€“ including this โ€˜Trans-Clyde Links You Clyde-Wideโ€™ 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 Thatcherโ€™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 regionโ€™s buses back in public control.

If you like the T-Shirt, come down to the exhibition in September and youโ€™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 ๐Ÿ˜Š See you there! @followers
...

2 months ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

4 CommentsComment on Facebook

This ๐—™๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฑ๐—ฎ๐˜† ๐Ÿฑ ๐—๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฒ in Glasgow! ๐Ÿ“ข I'm delighted to be talking about my work with Get Glasgow Moving & Glasgow Community Energy at the ๐˜™๐˜ฆ๐˜ช๐˜ฎ๐˜ข๐˜จ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ ๐˜Š๐˜ช๐˜ต๐˜บ: ๐˜๐˜ฐ๐˜ธ ๐˜ค๐˜ข๐˜ฏ ๐˜ฑ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฑ๐˜ญ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ข๐˜ญ๐˜ญ๐˜บ ๐˜ฎ๐˜ข๐˜ฌ๐˜ฆ ๐˜Ž๐˜ญ๐˜ข๐˜ด๐˜จ๐˜ฐ๐˜ธ? conference at the University of Glasgow ๐ŸŽŸ๏ธ Tickets are free, so come join us ๐Ÿ‘‡ @followers ...

4 months ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

0 CommentsComment on Facebook

Don't miss our Better Buses National Hustings tonight! ๐Ÿ‘‡ You can catch me on the livestream at 7pm:
๐Ÿ“บ www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rFh2CjP_Xs @followers
...

5 months ago
View on Facebook (opens in a new tab)

1 CommentsComment on Facebook

Commodities

  • Counterpoint Poster Counterpoint Poster £10.00
  • The Quotidian Factor Badge The Quotidian Factor Badge £2.00
  • Tea Blog Sticker Tea Blog Sticker £1.00
  • Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt £20.00
  • 4 Live Broadcasts DVD 4 LIVE Broadcasts DVD £20.00
  • National Museum of Roller Derby T-Shirt National Museum of Roller Derby T-Shirt £25.00
  • Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt £15.00
  • Channel Swimming Challenge Logbook Channel Swimming Challenge Logbook £3.00
  • Hen Weekend Bag Hen Weekend Bag £10.00

Contact

  • Newsletter Archive
  • Website Archive / Credits
  • Blatant Self-Promotion
  • Twitter Boycott
  • Instagram
  • Video Archive
  • Audio Archive / Podcast
  • Publications Archive
  • Events
  • ellie@ellieharrison.com

Small Print

  • Creative Commons Licence
  • Environmental Policy
This website runs on green hosting - verified by thegreenwebfoundation.org
0.5g of CO2/viewWebsite Carbon

Cleaner than 48% of pages tested