Work
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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.
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Transmediale: Capture All
Harrison discusses her strategies for monitoring and redressing the work-life balance, as part of the Time & Motion panel at Transmediale 2015: Capture All.
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How the ‘Them’ became ‘Us’
In this short text, written for ShareAction’s Listen to USS! divestment campaign in 2014, Harrison exposes how compromises can so easily occur when one grows-up and gets a ‘proper job‘. (Word count: 998)
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Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
Talk by Ellie Harrison to students at Funen Art Academy in Denmark, presenting the ideas behind the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills – a title borrowed from the UK Government for her studio during her six-week residency at the academy.
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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.
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In conversation with Ewa Jasiewicz
Harrison in conversation with journalist and activist Ewa Jasiewicz at Talbot Rice Gallery as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2014, discussing her referendum-themed installation / event After the Revolution, Who Will Clean Up the Mess? and the relationship between art, activism and social change.
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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.
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The Art School Handbook
In this essay, written in 2014 during her first year teaching at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Harrison surveys the troubled global landscape of higher education and sketches out her vision for The Art School of the 21st Century. (Word count: 5,668)
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Transition Community of One
Devised in 2014 in response to Glasgow Open House Art 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.