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She is the first artist with a learning disability to earn the coveted distinction.
Nnena Kalu (photo courtesy the artist and ActionSpace)
Artist Nnena Kalu, whose hanging sculptures and life-sized drawings channel the gentle rhythmic energy of nests and cocoons, is the winner of the 2025 Turner Prize, Tate Britain announced today, December 9.
She is the first artist with a learning disability to secure the coveted £25,000 (~$33,250) prize, reported the BBC, which broadcast tonight’s award ceremony live from Bradford, the British government’s selected 2025 City of Culture.
Four artists were shortlisted for the coveted accolade: Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami, and Zadie Xa. The three runners-up will each receive £10,000 (~$13,300). An exhibition of their works is on view at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford until February 22, in line with the Turner Prize’s custom of presenting the winners at venues outside the Tate.
Nnena Kalu, “Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10” (2024) (photo by Ivan Erofeev, courtesy Manifesta 15)
Born in Glasgow in 1966 to Nigerian parents, Kalu lives and works in London, where she has been an artist-in-residence at ActionSpace, an organization that hosts artists with disabilities, for the past 25 years. The 59-year-old artist typically works by wrapping, coiling, and knotting pieces of fabric, rope, and even magnetic tape from VHS cassettes around a tube or other framework, achieving spirals, spools, and coils in sculptures that are both familiar and improvisational. She mirrors these gestures in her drawings, using pen, graphite, and pastels in circular motions.
Two of her works — “Drawing 21” (2021) exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and “Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10” (2024) at Manifesta 15 in Barcelona — earned the artist the Turner nomination.
Charlotte Hollinshead, Kalu’s artistic facilitator and the head of artist development at ActionSpace, spoke on her behalf at tonight’s award ceremony. She told audiences that Kalu, who has limited verbal communication, was not always welcome by the art world, and that she faced discrimination and hurdles because of her disability.
“Hopefully this award smashes that prejudice away,” Hollinshead said during her address.
