The UK’s most celebrated contemporary art prize heads to Cartwright Hall during Bradford’s City of Culture year
LEFT TO RIGHT: Nnena Kalu. Courtesy of the Artist and ActionSpace. Zadie Xa by Charles Duprat. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. Rene Matić by Diana Pfammatter. Mohammed Sami by Sarel Jansen.
Tate has announced the four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2025: Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami, and Zadie Xa. Their work will be exhibited at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery from 27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026 as a centrepiece of Bradford’s UK City of Culture celebrations. The winner will be announced on 9 December in the heart of the West Yorkshire city.
This year’s shortlist showcases a compelling range of practices—from cocoon-like sculptures and haunting dreamscapes to lyrical photography and immersive installations—all anchored by urgent questions of identity, memory, and belonging. The nominees reflect a powerful cross-section of contemporary British art at its most expressive, experimental, and socially resonant.
Nnena Kalu is recognised for her recent shows at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery and Manifesta 15 in Barcelona. Her exuberant sculptural installations—bundles of paper, fabric and tape wrapped into vibrant forms—channel energy through repetition and physical rhythm. Her work, often made in public or live settings, carries a visceral immediacy, responding dynamically to architecture and space.
Rene Matić received their nomination for AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH at CCA Berlin, a show that melded personal photography, sound and text to explore themes of identity, tenderness, and the politics of everyday life. The jury praised Matić’s ability to turn intimate portraits of friends and family into compelling reflections on wider cultural experience and generational belonging.
Mohammed Sami, known for his psychologically charged paintings, is nominated for After the Storm at Blenheim Palace. Through empty interiors, abandoned furniture, and pattern-laced surfaces, Sami invokes the unseen presence of trauma, exile, and memory—offering a poignant meditation on absence shaped by his own experiences of war in Iraq.
Zadie Xa brings sound, textile, painting and sculpture together in work that pulses with spiritual and folkloric energies. Her installation at Sharjah Biennial 16, made with Benito Mayor Vallejo, imagined the sea as a site of ancestral memory and transformation. Combining Korean shamanic rituals with other diasporic practices, Xa’s art is richly layered, immersive, and steeped in myth.
This year’s Turner Prize jury—Andrew Bonacina, Sam Lackey, Priyesh Mistry, and Habda Rashid, chaired by Tate Britain Director Alex Farquharson—highlighted the breadth of medium and approach represented in the shortlist. “Each of the artists offers a unique way of viewing the world through personal experience and expression,” said Farquharson. “On JMW Turner’s 250th birthday, I’m delighted to see his spirit of innovation still alive and well in contemporary British art.”
Hosting the exhibition in Bradford during its City of Culture year marks a significant moment for the city. Shanaz Gulzar, Creative Director of Bradford 2025, called the event “a landmark moment” and praised the nominees for their ability “to take huge subject matters and abstract themes and turn them into powerful, shared experiences.”
The Turner Prize exhibition promises to be a highlight of Bradford 2025’s packed cultural programme, drawing new audiences to one of the UK’s most dynamic and diverse cities. With four visionary artists pushing the boundaries of form and storytelling, the prize’s legacy as a platform for dialogue, experimentation and cultural critique continues to thrive.
For more information, please visit Tate.
