Artist: I won’t take £15k cash for granted...
AN artist who is being paid £15,000 not to leave Glasgow for a year has hit back at claims she is wasting taxpayers’ money.
Academic Ellie Harrison has defended the bumper payout by saying she will donate it to her bosses at Dundee University – in return for paid leave.
Miss Harrison was given the cash by Creative Scotland for a 12month performance piece that will see her live in Greater Glasgow for a year – even though she already lives in the city.
After she was hounded online over the project – which she calls ‘the Glasgow Effect’ – Miss Harrison, 36, took to Facebook to defend her art. She wrote: ‘I have been negotiating with the university to “donate” the £15,000 to them in exchange f or paid “Research Leave” to undertake the project.’
She added: ‘In order to fulfil one of the criteria of my 3.5-year “pro- bation” for my lecturing post at the university I was required to “write and submit a significant research grant application”.
‘ On October 20, 2015, I was awarded the grant. The fact that this university, like most others in the UK, now requires its lecturing staff to be fundraisers and is willing to pay them to be absent from teaching as a result should be the focus of this debate.’
However, Miss Harrison’s statement did little to stem the tide of criticism online.
Facebook user Ross Garner said: ‘You want to give the university £15,000 to hire a lecturer to cover your absence while you are on paid leave? Did I read that right?’
Andrew Sharp wrote: ‘ This is mental, you’re getting £15k to give to a uni so they can then pay you not to work and just keep living in Glasgow as “research”.
‘That is the greatest way to avoid going back to work after New Year I’ve ever seen.’ Other critics have campaigned against Miss Harrison’s Creative Scotland grant.
Robbie Sith has set up a website called ‘15k better spent in Glasgow’. Examples include 60,000 packs of noodles and 8,824 twolitre bottles of Irn-Bru from Tesco.
Ryan Currie created an online poll called: What do you think of The Glasgow Effect? Leading the poll yesterday was ‘Pretentious s***e and a waste of money’.
Miss Harrison’s Facebook page states the research project aims to ‘increase her sense of belonging’, and ‘challenge the demand-totravel placed upon the “successful” artist/academic’. It is understood the project will involve keeping an internet blog, and that Miss Harrison’s whole life in Glasgow will be part of the ‘work of art’.
Miss Harrison is a lecturer in contemporary art practices at Dundee University. Her previous work has included detailing her thoughts every time she had a cup of tea for three years and documenting everything she did for four weeks.
A Creative Scotland spokesman said: ‘Ellie’s project met the criteria for Open Project Funding and we await with interest the outcome of her project.’
‘Increase sense
of belonging’