Ellie Harrison @ Market Gallery

Looking through the wide windows of Duke Street’s Market Gallery the interior more resembles a shop window display than an art exhibition. The main attraction of Ellie Harrison’s piece is a row of perky plastic popcorn makers varying from sleek, efficient-looking models to bright coloured, cutesy ducks. If you stick around you will see passing families stop to look in; children pressing their noses up to the windows and pointing out their favourite model. The popcorn makers provide quite a performance. The machines are timed meticulously to produce popcorn at certain intervals: each one re-enacting a different period of financial crisis, meanwhile mischievously stirring the consumerist appetites of unassuming passers-by.

The imagery speaks for itself: popcorn spilling wastefully onto the ground, and near closing time, the leftovers poignantly swept into the corner of the room where an untouched pile grows ever larger.

Playful touches prevent the tone of the piece from becoming too simplistic, too nauseatingly earnest. The overly large cartoon brush used to sweep away the popcorn adds a comic twist. When the machines start to work, the scene is rather jubilant, and visitors are encouraged to eat the popcorn that has not fallen to the ground. The space invites the spectators to enter into a playful dialogue with the consumerist dream. However, its sparseness and the messy gaggle of wires on the display table means that the game ends quickly. Overall, the combination of irony, playfulness and interaction make for a layered and intriguing experience, but the ambition of the topics Harrison engages with could be explored a little further.