A 14-strong architecture collective with a strong social conscience has won this year’s Turner Prize.
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The approach for the Granby Four Streets project, according to Assemble’s website, “is characterised by celebrating the value of the area’s architectural and cultural heritage, supporting public involvement and partnership working, offering local training and employment opportunities and nurturing the resourcefulness and DIY spirit that defines the four streets”.
Assemble are the first non-artists, in the strictest sense of the word, to win the prize.
The members of the Turner Prize 2015 jury were Alistair Hudson, Director, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; Kyla McDonald, Artistic Director, Glasgow Sculpture Studios; Joanna Mytkowska, Director, Museum Sztuki Nowoczesnej; and Jan Verwoert, critic and curator.
Many houses in the Liverpool neighborhood had suffered severe damage in 1981 riots and been earmarked for demolition until residents banded together, sold produce to support renewal efforts and invited London-based Assemble to help out.
They are the first collective to have won the award – and picked it up on the same night the Turnip Prize was awarded to a “rubbish” work of art in a Somerset pub.
“We worked for a number of years in Dalmarnock in the east end of Glasgow helping to set up the Baltic Street Adventure Playground – a child-led space which provides a place for children to play in a very free and unencumbered way”. Past winners include art auction elite like Anish Kapoor, Gilbert & George, Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin.
“For some people it is art, but also through that project houses have been provided and products made and there’s other things that have happened alongside that”.
“For some people, they say [this project] is art, for someone else, it’s the street they’ve lived all their lives and are battling to save, for someone else it’s a new home they’re just moving into.”
British artist Ms Camplin created an interactive work, The Military Industrial Complex, that featured large TVs, books and a photocopier.
The nominated installation by Nicole Wermers consists of 10 dining chairs with fur coats sewn into their backs.
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The victor was announced by Kim Gordon, of United States rock band Sonic Youth.
