Scottish Sikh artist Jasleen Kaur wins prestigious Turner Prize 2024

London: Glasgow-born artist of Indian heritage Jasleen Kaur, whose works are inspired by her life growing up in Scotland’s Sikh community, has won Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize 2024 for her considered weaving together of the "personal, political and spiritual”.

Kaur collected the GBP 25,000 (Rs 26.84 lakh approximately) prize at a ceremony at the Tate Britain in London on Tuesday night for her solo exhibition ‘Alter Altar’, which included sculptures from gathered and remade objects, each of which are animated through an immersive sound and musical composition interspersed with the artist’s own renditions.

The Turner Prize jury said they chose Kaur for her reflections upon everyday objects, animating them through sound and music to summon “community and cultural inheritance”.

“The jury noted the considered way in which Kaur weaves together the personal, political and spiritual in her exhibition ‘Alter Altar’, choreographing a visual and aural experience that suggests both solidarity and joy,” Turner Prize said in a statement.

“They praised her ability to gather different voices through unexpected and playful combinations of material, from Irn-Bru to family photographs and a vintage Ford Escort, locating moments of resilience and possibility,” they said.

Objects including family photos, an Axminster carpet, a vintage Ford Escort covered in a giant doily (ornamental mat), Irn-Bru (Scottish drink) and kinetic hand bells have been orchestrated to convey the London-based artist’s upbringing in Scotland.

"I have had so many messages today from people from the local Sikh community and from folk that I grew up with. Something like this that is so visible means a lot to a lot of different people. It means something to different groups and I'm up for representing all of them," said Kaur, on winning the honour.

The artist, in her 30s, studied jewellery making and then applied art, which got her interested in making objects in combinations around the stories that they can tell.

Her exhibition, along with the three other shortlisted artists who each win GBP 10,000, is on display at Tate Britain Museum by the river Thames until mid-February 2025.

Linsey Young, co-curator of the exhibition at Tate Britain, said: “Her room is made up of installations that are looking at anti-colonialist discussion, anti-imperialist struggles and really assessing those against her lived experience, her family and upbringing.

"It includes a Ford car and she talks about it as being one of her dad’s ambitions and migrant desires; when he moved from India to Glasgow, having a car like that was an aspiration. It’s covered in a crocheted cotton doily, so a kind of domestic object made very, very large where the cotton material relates to histories of migration and labour – of Indian people coming to the north of England after the war and working in cotton mills.” Other items making up Kaur’s display include a harmonium on a lush carpet inviting visitors to sit and observe the kinetic worship bells.

A central feature is music entitled ‘Yearnings 2023’, an improvised vocal soundscape of the artist’s voice layered over snippets of pop songs playing from the speakers of ‘Sociomobile 2023’ – the vintage Ford Escort – filling the space with Kaur’s own musical memory.

The Turner Prize jury praised her “evocative combination of sound and sculpture to address specifics of family memory and community struggle”.

In an accompanying film at the exhibition, the artist reflects upon the Sikh concept of Miri Piri, which talks of finding a balance between the political and spiritual and wants to explore the different ways for humanity to live together through her art.

One of the world’s best-known prizes for the visual arts, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art.

Established in 1984, the prize is named after the radical painter JMW Turner (1775-1851) and is awarded each year to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work, with British Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor among its past winners.

The year 2024 marks the prize’s 40th anniversary, as well as its return to Tate Britain for the first time in six years. Other artists shortlisted this year included Pio Abad of Filipino heritage, Black British Arts Movement founding-member Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas of Romani heritage.