Friday 28th January 2005
Ealing Gazette (page 6)
By Andreas Christophorou
The profile of an Ealing artist is set to receive a boost this month, after London Underground agreed to display her exhibition at Piccadilly Circus. Giant postcards of Ellie Harrison are being put up at all 275 stations, to advertise her Gold Card Adventures - a year-long project in which she meticulously noted the distance she travelled every day by Tube, bus and train. This reached a staggering total of 5,738 miles in 1,495 journeys, which started every morning from her parents’ house in St Stephen’s Road, West Ealing.
Ellie calculated the distance she travelled on the Tube by using a map of the Underground. She traced each route and used a mini trundle wheel to measure the distances. The bus journeys were calculated by measuring the routes on an A to Z map. The 25-year-old decided to embark on the project after buying an unlimited travel card in September 2002, to commute to Goldsmiths College in New Cross for a postgraduate diploma in fine art.
Ellie created a chart that featured international destinations the equivalent distance from Ealing to the mileage she had notched up using public transport. These included Brighton, Dusseldorf, Cairo, New York and Shanghai. She contacted London Underground with the idea of creating huge postcards from the various world destinations, with a picture of her holding up her gold card in the background.
Ellie said “I asked my friends to send me as many postcards as possible so I could see the different styles. I wanted them to look like normal postcards do”. All 20 posters are now displayed in the ticket hall at Piccadilly Circus station. Gold Card Adventures will be displayed at Piccadilly Circus until March 21. For more information about Ellie’s work visit www.ellieharrison.com.
