Installations
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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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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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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 Redistribution of Wealth
Installed in Tate Britain’s Historic Collection Room, this piece retells the history of UK government spending on the arts from the birth of the ‘Council for the Encouragement of Music & the Arts’ in 1940, right up to the present day climate of cutbacks.
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Austerity & Anarchy
An installation which employs a spotlight and smoke machine to visualise and explore the correlation between cuts in public spending and instances of mass rioting on the UK’s streets.
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Early Warning Signs
One of Harrison’s contributions to Two Degrees festival in 2011 and now on a life-long tour of UK arts venues. These four signs were designed to mimic those you might find outside a garage or a Bureau de Change. On a mission ‘promote’ climate change, they try hard to grab the attention of passers-by.
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A Brief History of Privatisation
An installation in which the oscillations in UK public service policy over the last century are re-enacted by an inner circle of electric massage chairs under the seedy glow of red, and then blue, neon.
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Press Release
Devised specifically for the context of the ‘degree show’. For the final three weeks of her Master of Fine Art course at Glasgow School of Art, Harrison made a conscious decision not to make any ‘work’, in favour of instead transforming her studio into a ‘press office’ and attempting to directly solicit the media coverage which many hope will come as a result of this much anticipated show.
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Toytown
The sister installation to Vending Machine, this piece features a dilapidated 1980s kid’s car ride which starts up and offers people free rides when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed.
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Vending Machine
An installation for which an old vending machine is reprogrammed to release snacks only when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed.
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The History of Financial Crises
An installation in which the turbulent history of capitalism over the last century is re-enacted each day by a row of popcorn making machines.
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Transactions
Developed to accompany The History of Financial Crises installation – for the duration of exhibition, Harrison sent an SMS message to the phone installed in the gallery every time she made an economic transaction. The Coke can dances with joy every time a message is received.
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Know Your Thinkers & Theorists
Not strictly an installation, but more the by-product of a year-long research project for which, as part as her self-improvement programme, Harrison attempted to teach herself an overview of the chronology of Western philosophy and critical theory from 800 BC to the present. She hoped to retain this newly acquired information by designing an easy-to-read, quick reference, colour-coded wall chart for her studio wall.
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Angel Row Jukebox
An interactive installation commissioned for the closing party of Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham. The Jukebox contained all the UK #1 hits which corresponded with the openings of 254 exhibitions held at the gallery over its lifetime. The audience were asked to punch in the code for the exhibition they first remembered visiting.
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Timelines
For almost five years Harrison documented and recorded information about nearly every aspect of her daily routine. These laborious, demanding and introverted data collecting processes grew ever more extreme until she devised the ultimate challenge for Timelines – to attempt to document everything she did, 24 hours a day, for four whole weeks (26 June – 23 July 2006).