Ellie Harrison

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transport

  • 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!

  • 2020 Installations
    Tonnes of carbon… installed in Meadowbank for Edinburgh Art Festival in 2020

    Tonnes of carbon produced by the personal transportation of a ‘professional artist’

    This graph was first compiled as the central illustration of Harrison’s 2019 book The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint to illustrate the artist’s increasing amount of travel in the years running up to her 2016 project and the dramatic impact it had on reducing her carbon footprint for transport. It was updated in 2020 for display at Edinburgh Art Festival.

  • 2020 Writing

    Artist as Active Citizen

    Harrison reflects on The Glasgow Effect for this new text commissioned to launch a-n‘s year-long research project with AirSpace Gallery: Artists Make Change (May 2020 – May 2021). It is published alongside a new text by Dave Beech reflecting on the history of political art, to provoke discussion about artists’ roles in affecting social change. (Word count: 1,540)

  • 2019 Writing

    The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint

    On 4 November 2019, Luath Press published Harrison’s first book. Inspired by her 2016 ‘durational performance’ The Glasgow Effect – for which she refused to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for the whole calendar year – the book provides the complete context for her thinking and action. (Word count: 119,000)

  • 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!

  • 2016 Political Campaigns, Writing

    A Better Railway for Britain

    Writing as founder and coordinator of Bring Back British Rail, Harrison reflects on the last seven years’ campaigning for the public ownership of our railways in this preface for the campaign’s first report, launched in the Houses of Parliament in London on 13 October 2016. (Word count: 663)

  • 2012 Political Campaigns, Writing

    Bring Back British Rail

    As founder of the Bring Back British Rail campaign, Harrison was invited to write about the public ownership of our railways for the Green Party of England & Wales’s The New Home Front II (p.41-42) in 2012, which looks to the post-war period for lessons on how to tackle climate change now. (Word count: 709)

  • 2009 Political Campaigns

    Bring Back British Rail

    In 2009, Harrison – the self-professed ‘Che Guevara of trainspotters’ – founded the national Bring Back British Rail campaign to popularise the idea of re-nationalising our public transport system. Now with more than 150,000 supporters across Facebook, Twitter, Riseup and its online petitions, Harrison continues to coordinate the campaign with the help of a small network of volunteers around the UK.
    Campaign website

  • 2005 Installations
    Gold Card Adventures installed at Piccadilly Circus Underground station, London in 2005

    Gold Card Adventures

    For her solo exhibition at Piccadilly Circus Underground Station in 2005, Harrison created a series of 20 large format posters to visualise the data collected during her Gold Card Adventures project, for which she recorded the total distance of every journey she made on London Transport in a year (9,236 kilometres). These posters were used to mark the stages of this cumulative journey by featuring a series of imitation postcards from different global destinations at progressive further distances away from London.
    Project website

  • 2003 Installations
    Installation view at Birmingham Moor Street Station in 2007

    Statistics Are Hot Air

    This colour-coded vinyl bar chart visualises the exact quantity of gaseous emissions Harrison produced daily throughout 2003. Originally created in 2003 as a studio based wall chart exploring the notion of ‘artistic output’, for which Harrison added one bar to the chart each day. In 2007 the completed chart was installed as semi-permanent installation on glass at Birmingham Moor Street Station as part the New Art Birmingham exhibition Ariston. There is also an online version of the chart.

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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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

2 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
... See MoreSee Less

2 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

2 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

2 months ago
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It was such an honour to be part of this wonderful event on Saturday, and to help launch the new freely-available audiobook of The Wee Yellow Butterfly by Cathy McCormack 🦋📚 Find out more at: glasgowenergy.coop/audiobook @followers

It was such an honour to be part of this wonderful event on Saturday, and to help launch the new freely-available audiobook of The Wee Yellow Butterfly by Cathy McCormack 🦋📚 Find out more at: glasgowenergy.coop/audiobook @followers ... See MoreSee Less

3 months ago
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Commodities

  • Gold Card Adventures Poster Gold Card Adventures Poster £5.00
  • Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt Ellie & Oliver Show T-Shirt £20.00
  • Channel Swimming Challenge Logbook Channel Swimming Challenge Logbook £3.00
  • National Museum of Roller Derby Sticker National Museum of Roller Derby Sticker £3.00
  • 4 Live Broadcasts DVD 4 LIVE Broadcasts DVD £20.00
  • The Quotidian Factor Badge The Quotidian Factor Badge £2.00
  • Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund Sticker £3.00
  • Day-to-Day Data Book Day-to-Day Data Book £20.00
  • Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt Bus Regulation: The Musical T-Shirt £15.00

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  • ellie@ellieharrison.com

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