self-exploitation
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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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Scottish Artists Union AGM
Harrison was invited to be guest speaker at the 2016 AGM of the Scottish Artists Union, the union she has been a member of since 2010. She offered some insights into her research and work during The Glasgow Effect, in relation to some timeless trade union themes: solidarity and exploitation.
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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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Time & Motion: Redefining Working Life
Harrison explores her growing awareness of her own labour conditions and changing relationship to work in this talk at the Time & Motion symposium at the Royal College of Art in March 2014.
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Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed
Harrison identifies how she gradually became more politicised as a result of her growing awareness of her own labour conditions and ‘self-exploitation‘ within the post-Fordist world of work. An edited version of this text was published in the ‘Activism‘ chapter of Playing For Time (p.205-206) in 2015. (Word count: 711)
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A Good Climate for Business
Written by Harrison for Artsadmin in response to her residency at Two Degrees festival in 2011. This text details her attempts to explore the relationship between capitalism and climate change, which led to the development of Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed and Early Warning Signs. (Word count: 2,758)
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Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed
Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed is a world record classification initiated by Harrison in 2011. It aims to encourage isolated freelance workers like herself to come together to attempt to break the record for ‘the most self-employed people working together (on their own individual projects) in the same place at the same time, over the course of a normal 9-to-5 day’.
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Part-time
Harrison’s exposé of the door-to-door sales racket masterminded by the Cobra Group. Written in 2006 for her blog whist participating in the Part-time project commissioned by Prime, for which she was required to spend four weeks working ‘undercover’ in a low-wage job. (Word count: 3,774)
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Union of Undercover Artists
The Union of Undercover Artists was formed in summer 2006 by Harrison, Elizabeth Kearney and Joanna Spitzner in response to the project Part-time, which they had each been commissioned to take part in. For Part-time the three artists were required to spend four weeks working undercover in low-wage jobs and to make work in response to their experiences. As well as drawing attention to the lack of support or representation for individuals working in the visual arts sector, the Union of Undercover Artists formed one of the artists’ major responses to the Part-time project.
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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).