The troubled birth and times of Ellie Harrison’s The Glasgow Effect

December 31 2015: The Glasgow Effect is launched on Facebook and receives online criticism.

January 5 2016: Ellie Harrison announces she is using her £15,000 grant from Creative Scotland to pay her employer, Dundee University, to hire a replacement lecturer, while she herself continues to be paid by the university.

January 6: Creative Scotland say The Glasgow Effect funding plan goes against the rules. Courier reporter Graeme Ogston goes to the artist’s Glasgow home but she refuses to speak to him.

January 7: Ms Harrison defends her controversial art project when she finally breaks her silence on political website Common Space. She describes herself as a “middle-class punching bag” and says she does not regret changing the project name to The Glasgow Effect (some felt the name was patronising to the city).

February 3: Ms Harrison organises a ticketed only event for selected people to explain her art project. The Courier was unable to obtain tickets.

February 15: After a month of silence Ms Harrison posts some online polls on her Facebook page, asking whether more time means better teaching and if more money makes better art.

February 23: Despite refusing to clarify how the funding will be spent, or what art will be produced, Ms Harrison tells The Courier her project will “draw attention to the economic system”.

March 17: Ms Harrison says Dundee University is no longer supporting her and she must take unpaid leave for her year-long art project. She gets the £15,000 grant and can decide how it is spent.

December 31 – The project is set to finish.