Turner Prize 2026 Shortlist Announced with Strong Showing for Sculpture

Tate Britain London Follow +

Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku have today been announced as the shortlisted artists for the 2026 Turner Prize.

Their works span spoken word performance, installation and works on paper and film, and offer a strong focus on sculpture from the 42nd edition of the award. Each will receive £10,000, with the winner, due to be announced on 10 December, to be awarded a further £25,000.

Speaking at a press conference earlier today, Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain and chair of the Turner Prize Jury, said: “Together, the artists’ distinctly powerful works, whether sculpture, installation or performance, help us to better understand the world around us.

“Through unique perspectives and lines of inquiry, their practices take us on various extraordinary journeys, each of which explore different aspects of human experience. With reference to, for example, recent social history in the north of England, or on a different scale, the health of our planet.”

Kira Freije was selected for her first major solo exhibition, Unspeak the Chorus at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Freije’s theatrical tableau, created using metal, fabric and found materials, features life-size figures constructed from bare metal armatures and expressive, stonecast faces in poses that are at once unsettling and beautiful. 

The jury praised the emotional depth of Freije’s work, highlighting its unique sculptural vocabulary of materials and forms, as well as the haunting, expressive way she transformed the space through her arrangement of figures.

Simeon Barclay was nominated for his performance The Ruin, an hour-long spoken word performance drawing on his upbringing in Huddersfield and his lived experience of the industrial landscape of northern England. The work was commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and also presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire and New Art Exchange, Nottingham. 

Through sculpture and cycles of light and sound, Marguerite Humeau’s work examines the formation of life, ancient human history and imagined future worlds. She was nominated for her solo exhibition Torches presented at Arken Museum of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen and Helsinki Art Museum, where the jury was impressed by her cinematic exhibition-making.

Tanoa Sasraku explores geopolitical ideas through object-like sculptures and works on paper and film, and was selected for the exhibition Morale Patch at The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The installation focuses on recent political and military histories of oil by borrowing from the visual language of the corporate world. 

The jury praised the precision and sophistication of the installation, noting how it addresses complex historical issues with strong contemporary resonances, and its use of a clinical, minimalist display that conveys both irony and seriousness.

The four artists were selected by judges Sarah Allen, head of programme at South London Gallery; Joe Hill, director and chief executive at Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Sook-Kyung Lee, director, The Whitworth and Professor of Curatorial Practices at The University of Manchester, and Alona Pardo, director, Arts Council Collection, UK. 

The works will go on show at Teesside University’s MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, from 26 September 2026–29 March 2027. 

Laura Sillars, director at MIMA and dean of culture and creativity at Teesside University, said: “As the first Turner Prize within a university setting, this moment creates a special context, where contemporary art can inspire discussion, dialogue and new ways of thinking.”