School of Fine Art Sculpture & Environmental Art
Ellie Harrison
My work begins with an idea – a small, everyday moment, object, or action that catches my attention and refuses to let go. These observations come and go constantly, but the ones that persist become the foundation of my work. I’m inspired by the intersections of life and art and approach my practice with a curiosity about the world and a desire to understand it more carefully. This leads me to explore a range of techniques, including fabrication, film, performance, and installation.
I’m drawn to contradictions and enjoy transforming familiar moments by altering their scale, material, or context, weirdifying them. I try to turn these experiences inside out through experimentation, repetition, and by finding new methods that have natural synchronicity with these moments. A cartwheel to a film, cooked spaghetti to a performance.
850 Super
This is my degree show installation. A bike combined with a Super 8 projector. If you turn the pedals, the gears will move a mechanism that moves film across a light. The only source of electricity is a battery powered bike light. The film will play faster or slower based on how fast you pedal. How fast do you want to get where you’re going? Where are you going? While you cycle, have a little think about technology and the body. You don’t know where you are going, where are you going to turn? Where do you stop, where do you start? The film is on a loop. It is my commute to GSA.
She is like an artwork
I wanted to try and make an endless looping film of someone cartwheeling, but the camera is fixed on their head so they are still and the world is spinning around them. Maybe to capture the feeling that the world is overwhelming, maybe to flip perspectives of up and down, maybe to remind you we are on a rock spinning in space, maybe just to remind you that cartwheels are fun.
It didn’t quite work out, but here is the result of my attempt trying.
Thank you to my dear friend Esther Stone, it was a lot of fun.
