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Ellie Harrison

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Other contact method: [email protected]
Local authority: Glasgow City
Languages: English
Ellie Harrison's headshot

Ellie Harrison (b. London 1979) is an artist, activist and educator who has been living in Glasgow since 2008. Her work seeks to make visible the connections between social, environmental and economic injustices in our world, and to actively address them.

In 2016, she slashed her own carbon footprint for transport to zero and made headlines with her ‘controversial’ project The Glasgow Effect, for which she refused to leave Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for the whole calendar year – an action Scottish Rapper Darren McGarvey famously described as a ‘poverty safari’.

Her first book The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint was inspired by the 2016 project and published by Luath Press in November 2019. As much memoir as manifesto, the book traces her own life’s trajectory to examine the relationship between literal and social mobility.

Since 2013, Harrison has been a Lecturer in Contemporary Art Practice at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. She has spoken at a wide variety of public events – at art galleries/festivals, political conferences/community events, and, since the launch of her book, several literary festivals including Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 and AyeWrite 2020.

(Photo credit: Bruce White)

Local authorities will visit

Aberdeen City; Aberdeenshire; Angus; Argyll and Bute; Clackmannanshire; Dumfries and Galloway; Dundee; East Ayrshire; East Dunbartonshire; East Lothian; East Renfrewshire; Edinburgh City; Falkirk; Fife; Glasgow City; Highland; Inverclyde; Midlothian; Moray; Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles); North Ayrshire; North Lanarkshire; Orkney Islands; Perth and Kinross; Renfrewshire; Scottish Borders; Shetland; South Ayrshire; South Lanarkshire; Stirling; West Dunbartonshire; West Lothian

Events will deliver

Mentoring; Panel event; Performance; Reading; Residency; Talk; Chairing events

Topics of work

Activism & protest; Biography & memoir; Class & society; Discrimination & prejudice; Emigration & immigration; Environment & climate; Health including mental health & wellbeing; History; LGBTQIA+ characters; Loneliness & isolation; Politics; Poverty; Urban communities

Age groups published for

Adults

Age groups will work with

15-18; 18+

Audience size

0-10; 11-30; 31-100; 100-500; 500+