Tate Britain has announced the four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2026, naming Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku as this year’s contenders. The announcement confirms one of the most anticipated moments in the British art calendar, a prize that continues to generate serious critical debate about the state of contemporary practice in the UK and the institutional frameworks that shape it.
The shortlisted artists will each be represented in an exhibition at MIMA, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art at Teesside University, which opens on 26 September 2026 and runs until 29 March 2027. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony held at MIMA on 10 December 2026, continuing the prize’s recent practice of staging its culminating event outside London.
That decision to return the prize to the north east carries its own significance. MIMA has established itself as one of the most thoughtful regional institutions in the country, and Middlesbrough is a city with a genuine and complex relationship to questions of culture, labour and place that resonate with the work of more than one artist on this year’s list. The geography of the prize is never incidental.
Barclay, Freije, Humeau and Sasraku represent a shortlist of considerable range, spanning sculpture, installation and practices that resist straightforward categorisation. Further details of their nominated works will accompany the exhibition’s opening this autumn.
The Turner Prize 2026 exhibition opens at MIMA, Middlesbrough, on 26 September 2026.
Turner Prize 2026 shortlist, Roberts Institute of Arts presents Simeon Barclay, The Ruin, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, January 2025. Photo © Anne Tetzlaff. Courtesy of the Artist
Simeon Barclay
Nominated for his performance The Ruin, commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and also presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire and New Art Exchange, Nottingham. The hour-long spoken word performance, featuring live percussion by James Larter and horn by Isaac Shieh, draws on Barclay’s upbringing in Huddersfield and his lived experience of the industrial landscape of northern England. The jury praised Barclay’s debut performance for its exploration of Britishness, class, race and masculine identity, through an evocative, experimental use of language and a psychologically immersive soundscape.
Turner Prize 2026 shortlist: Portrait of Kira Freije. Photo © Robin Bernstein
Kira Freije
Nominated for her first major solo exhibition, Unspeak the Chorus at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Freije uses metal, fabric and found materials to create sculptures that explore universal human emotions. Her theatrical tableau features life-size figures constructed from bare metal armatures and expressive, stonecast faces in poses that are at once unsettling and beautiful. The jury praised the emotional depth of Freije’s work, highlighting its unique sculptural vocabulary of materials and forms, as well as the haunting, expressive way she transformed the space through her arrangement of figures.
Marguerite Humeau, “Torches” at HAM Helsinki Art Museum
Marguerite Humeau
Nominated for her solo exhibition Torches, presented at ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen and Helsinki Art Museum. Humeau’s work examines the formation of life, ancient human history and imagined future worlds. Her sculptures combine references to specific natural species and other-worldly forms, bathed in a looped cycle of light and sound. The installation expresses a deep kinship with the natural world, adopting an eco-centric rather than human-centred perspective. The jury was impressed by her cinematic exhibition-making, and her engagement with ecological and existential themes through inventive forms, speculative scenarios and dynamic shifts in scale.
Tanoa Sasraku portrait © Belinda Lawley
Tanoa Sasraku
Nominated for her solo exhibition Morale Patch at The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London. The installation explores geopolitical ideas through object-like sculptures, works on paper and film. The exhibition focuses on recent political and military histories of oil through a highly conceptual installation that borrows from the visual language of the corporate world. The jury praised the precision and sophistication of the installation, noting how it addresses complex historical issues with strong contemporary resonances, and its use of a clinical, minimalist display that conveys both irony and seriousness.
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. The Turner Prize winner will be awarded £25,000, with £10,000 awarded to the other shortlisted artists.
Tate Britain frequently works with museums and galleries across the UK to bring the Turner Prize to the widest possible audience. Since 2011, the exhibition has been staged in Gateshead, Derry-Londonderry, Glasgow, Hull, Margate, Coventry, Liverpool, Eastbourne and Bradford. The prize is a pillar of Tate’s dynamic programme of national partnerships, which also includes exhibition tours, research projects, and the lending of hundreds of artworks to UK venues, where they are seen by over 3 million people a year.
Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain and Chair of the Turner Prize Jury, said: “It is a privilege to announce this outstanding shortlist – congratulations to all four nominated artists. The Turner Prize continues to offer the public a compelling reflection of the breadth and vitality of contemporary British art. This year’s selection presents a rich and diverse range of work, spanning installation and performance, and with a strong emphasis on sculptural practice. Each artist invites us into carefully constructed scenarios, both real and imagined, that offer distinct perspectives through which to explore the world around us, and to reflect on our place within it.”
Dr Laura Sillars, Director at MIMA and Dean of Culture and Creativity at Teesside University, said: “This shortlist promises an extraordinary Turner Prize exhibition at Teesside University’s cultural heart, MIMA. We all look forward to working with the artists over the coming months in Middlesbrough, a place with a strong and growing cultural confidence. As the first Turner Prize within a university setting, this moment creates a special context, where contemporary art can inspire discussion, dialogue and new ways of thinking.”
The members of the Turner Prize 2026 jury are: Sarah Allen, Head of Programme, South London Gallery; Joe Hill, Director & Chief Executive, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Sook-Kyung Lee, Director, The Whitworth and Professor of Curatorial Practices at The University of Manchester and Alona Pardo, Director, Arts Council Collection, UK. The jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, Director, Tate Britain.