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Towner Eastbourne - photo by Marc Atkins

The University of Sussex is Education Partner for Turner Prize 2023 at Towner Eastbourne, and on Thursday 27 April the Prize shortlist was announced.

Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the previous twelve months. The Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art.

The shortlisted artists are:

• Jesse Darling – Darling's work encompasses sculptures and installations which evoke the vulnerability of the human body and the precariousness of power structures. The jury was struck by Darling’s ability to manipulate materials and express the messy reality of life.
• Ghislaine Leung – Leung’s work takes the form of ‘scores’ – sets of instructions which test the boundaries of the gallery space. The jury commended the warm, humorous, and transcendental qualities that lay within Leung’s work and her commitment to challenging the way art is produced.
• Rory Pilgrim – Pilgrim’s work interweaves stories, poems, music and film, created in collaboration with local communities of Barking and Dagenham, to reflect on times of struggle during the pandemic. The jury praised Pilgrim’s project as a standout example of social practice.
• Barbara Walker – Walker’s work explores the impact of the Windrush scandal, underlaying figurative drawn portraits with facsimiles of the documentation these individuals had to produce to prove their right to remain. The jury applauded Walker’s ability to use portraits of monumental scale to tell similarly monumental stories, whilst maintaining a profound tenderness and intimacy.

“It's a fascinating shortlist - real diversity of material and approaches paired with a consistent interest in what it feels like for people to live in a world that's falling apart; what it means to be human within broken and hostile systems", commented Ben Burbridge, from our School of Media, Arts and Humanities.

You can also read Ben's take in The Conversation UK on how the intersection of art and politics applies to the UK’s biggest prize for contemporary art.

The free exhibition of the shortlisted work at Towner Eastbourne will run from September 28 2023 to April 14 2024. And the winner will be announced on December 5 2023 at an award ceremony in Eastbourne’s Winter Gardens.

Through our Education Partnership, teams from across the university have been working in collaboration with Towner Eastbourne on an inspiring arts education programme, which will include events at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), and will bring the Turner Prize to life for local young people across the region.

Check out the Towner Eastbourne website for more information on the Turner Prize exhibition and their centenary celebrations.

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