Turner Prize 2025: Nnena Kalu's Historic, Cocoon-Like Win

The 2025 Turner Prize, awarded in Bradford during its year as UK City of Culture, made history. It went to Nnena Kalu — the first artist with a learning disability ever to win Britain's most famous art prize.

Glasgow-born and London-based, Kalu wraps materials into great suspended, cocoon-like sculptures and fills paper with swirling, rhythmic, vortex-like drawings. The jury praised the 'powerful presence' of work that translates pure gesture into hypnotic abstraction.

Her nomination — for projects at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and Manifesta 15 in Barcelona — was hailed as a milestone for learning-disabled artists everywhere. A genuinely landmark moment for the prize.

Image: “Joseph Mallord William Turner - Self-Portrait - Google Art Project” — J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.