This year’s Turner Prize marks an important moment for learning disabled artists, according to the organisation that supports the winning artist Nnena Kalu.
The winner of the £25,000 prize was announced on 9 December at a ceremony at Bradford Grammar School. The prize and exhibition are being held in Yorkshire as part of Bradford’s year as the UK City of Culture.
Charlotte Hollinshead, the head of artist development at ActionSpace, a visual arts organisation that supports learning disabled artists across London, spoke on behalf of Kalu at the ceremony.
“Nnena’s career reflects the long, often very frustrating journey we've been on together to challenge people's preconceptions about differently abled artists, but especially learning disabled artists, an important creative community that is so undervalued,” Hollinshead said. “When Nnena first began working with ActionSpace in 1999 the art world was not interested. Her work wasn't respected, not seen, and certainly wasn't regarded as cool.
“Nnena has faced an incredible amount of discrimination, which continues to this day. Hopefully this award smashes that prejudice away.”
Kalu, who was born in Glasgow in 1966, has been a resident artist in ActionSpace’s studio, based at Studio Voltaire, since 1999.
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Kalu creates hanging sculptures from wrappings of different materials making cocoon-like shapes, as well as large-scale drawings. The jury commended the artist’s “bold and compelling work, praising her lively translation of expressive gesture into captivating abstract sculpture and drawing”.
The UK visual arts sector has launched a number of recent initiatives to support disabled artists.
These include We Contain Multitudes, a three-year collaborative project between the Collective gallery in Edinburgh, Dundee Contemporary Arts and Lux Scotland, which supports artists' moving image practices in Scotland. The partnership, which is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, is “committed to questioning the institutional ableism in the sector and to imagining a future in which disabled artists and arts professionals have increased access to opportunities, are visible, and their expertise and experiences are truly valued”.
This year also saw the opening of Beyond the Visual at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds on 28 November (until 19 April 2026). The exhibition is described as the “UK’s first major sculpture exhibition where blind and partially blind practitioners are central to the curatorial process as well as making up the majority of exhibitors”.
Beyond the Visual is the culmination of a three-year, £250,000 AHRC-funded research project led by University of the Arts London, disability-led organisation Shape Arts, and the Henry Moore Institute.
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The exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute follows the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Design and Disability exhibition, which opened on 7 June (until 15 February 2026). The show showcases the contributions of disabled, deaf, and neurodivergent people to contemporary design and culture from the 1940s to now.
The other three shortlisted Turner Prize artists are Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa.
The work of all four artists can be seen at Bradford's Cartwright Hall Art Gallery until 22 February 2026. The show, which has attracted 34,000 visitors to date, is co-curated by Jill Iredale, curator, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery; Michael Richmond, curator, Yorkshire Contemporary; and Sophie Bullen, assistant curator, Yorkshire Contemporary, for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
The members of the Turner Prize 2025 jury are Andrew Bonacina, independent curator; Sam Lackey, director, Liverpool Biennial; Priyesh Mistry, associate curator of modern and contemporary projects, National Gallery; and Habda Rashid, senior curator of modern and contemporary art, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The jury is chaired by Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson.
The Turner Prize was established in 1984 to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. The prize is awarded each year to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work.
Next year’s Turner Prize exhibition will be held at Mima in Middlesbrough and it will be at Tate St Ives in 2027.
