Work
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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!
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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!
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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.
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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)
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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)
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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!
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Art, Activism & the Absurdities of Economic Growth
Harrison’s first TEDx talk gives an overview of her work in the decade that followed the global financial crisis of 2008. She examines the inherent contradiction between the continual and infinite ‘growth’ demanded by capitalism and the ‘sustainability’ necessary to prevent climate change, and explains how some serious analysis of her own lifestyle within our globalised economic system, led her to make some extreme decisions.
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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.
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The Glasgow Effect
On 8 January 2017, just one week after completing her year-long ‘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 of 2016, Harrison gave a talk about the work at the Glasgow Film Theatre. On 4 November 2019, she published a book providing the complete context for her thinking and action.
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People Powered Money
From March 2016 – March 2017, Harrison worked as part of the ‘Glasgow Pound Working Group’, to explore possibilities for developing a citywide community currency to serve the people of Glasgow and build a stronger local economy.
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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)
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Practising what we Preach
Written by Harrison during the first few months of The Glasgow Effect in 2016, this essay explores the many problems within the higher education system, which were the project’s initial impetus, and the destructive values these promote. It outlines key actions to resolve the contradictions that are preventing us from practising what we preach. (Word count: 4,496)
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The Glasgow Effect: A Discussion
A discussion about The Glasgow Effect chaired by Roanne Dods & Gerry Hassan with Darren McGarvey, Katie Gallogly-Swan & Ellie Harrison, held at the Glad Cafe as part of Imagination: Scotland’s Festival of Ideas.
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The Glasgow Effect
The Glasgow Effect was a multi-layered ‘research project‘, which took place in 2016. Its central provocation was that Harrison would refuse to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for a whole calendar year (1 January – 31 December 2016). On 8 January 2017, she gave a talk about the work at the Glasgow Film Theatre. On 4 November 2019, she published a book providing the complete context for her thinking and action.
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The RRAAF Debate
Harrison outlines the ideas behind her new Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund project at the Shifting Power event at Beaconsfield in London.
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Sustainability in Practice
Speaking at the Culture & Sustainability event organised by Julie’s Bicycle at The Tetley in Leeds, Harrison discusses the challenges and consequences of putting ‘sustainability’ into practice; specifically: her life-long project Early Warning Signs, her Environmental Policy and how her breaches of its Transportation section led to The Glasgow Effect.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Venice Biennale: Think Local, Act Global!
Harrison self-critically reflects on the experience of taking part in the 2015 Venice Biennale (as part of Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf) in this short text for Press Room, which laid the groundwork for The Glasgow Effect in 2016. (Word count: 760)
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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.
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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.
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Ethics: Extremism & Compromise
A talk by Ellie Harrison exploring the relationship between her life choices and her work as an artist for Artquest’s Practice 360° programme at Camden Arts Centre in London.
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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