Wasp venom, crude oil: Britain’s Turner Prize finalists extract art from environment
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(Clockwise from top left) Turner Prize contenders Kira Freije, Simeon Barclay, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku are exhibiting at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
PHOTOS: ROBIN BERNSTEIN, COURTESY OF SIMEON BARCLAY, COURTESY OF MARGUERITE HUMEAU, BELINDA LAWLEY
- The 2026 Turner Prize exhibition at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art features four British artists exploring themes of nature, history and geopolitics through diverse media.
- Marguerite Humeau uses sound and sculpture to imagine prehistoric and future worlds, while Simeon Barclay reflects on 1970s Britain's infrastructure impact through film and performance.
- Tanoa Sasraku highlights oil extraction and its conflicts using symbolic objects, and Kira Freije creates universal sculptures from steel and found materials, with the winner announced on Dec 10.
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MIDDLESBROUGH, England – Upon entering the galleries of 2026’s Turner Prize exhibition, visitors will be startled to hear the trumpeting of a dying elephant.
In the next room, beeswax is sculpted around 150-year-old walnut wood to form structures resembling honeycomb or fungi. Hand-blown glass vessels are filled with raw honey, ancient yeast or wasp venom.
France-born, London-based artist Marguerite Humeau, 40, calls these her “speculative worlds” – prehistoric pasts, imagined futures or alternate universes.
From massive elephants to minuscule insects, she considers the lessons that can be learnt about collective survival.
Torches (The Honey Holder) by Marguerite Humeau for the 2026 Turner Prize at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
PHOTO: DAVID LEVENE
Humeau is one of four artists nominated for the Turner, one of the world’s best-known prizes for the visual arts.
Torches (Echo, A Matriarch Engineered To Die) by Marguerite Humeau for the 2026 Turner Prize at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
PHOTO: DAVID LEVENE
Established in 1984 and named for the celebrated 19th-century painter J.M.W. Turner, it is awarded each year to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of their work.
The prize exhibition alternates between the Tate Britain in London and venues around Britain. In 2026, it is hosted by the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in north-east England from Sept 26 to March 29, 2027.
The Ruin by Simeon Barclay for the 2026 Turner Prize at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
PHOTO: DAVID LEVENE
Up against Humeau – and competing aurally with her elephantine soundscape in the next room – is Simeon Barclay, 51, who has been shortlisted for his first live performance, The Ruin.
It looks back at the construction of the M62 motorway through the Pennines, one of the most significant infrastructural projects of 1970s Britain, which impacted areas such as Barclay’s birthplace of Huddersfield.
His installation centres on an 80-minute film that combines his spoken-word recordings with video footage. It is screened amid construction scaffolding while colourful balloons drift towards the ceiling and a neon-green bar sign flashes in the background.
Meanwhile, Glasgow-based Tanoa Sasraku, 31, goes below the surface to investigate the extraction of oil and the geopolitical conflicts surrounding it. Across a giant board, she has arranged 32 acrylic paperweights known as “tombstones”, which are presented as retirement gifts to oil industry executives.
Gallery worker Sophie Ascough with British artist Tanoa Sasraku’s presentation during a press preview.
PHOTO: EPA
Each contains a few drops of liquid crude oil extracted from where the executive worked – Kandahar, Saudi Arabia and so on.
Besides oil, Sasraku also works with raw pigments found in the earth in Cornwall and Ghana, where she spent her summers as a child, watching her father work as a fashion cutter.
In the work Mascot, she saturates a paper suit pattern with the pigments.
An acrylic paperweight containing crude oil forms part of an installation titled Morale Patch by artist Tanoa Sasraku.
PHOTO: AFP
Upstairs, London sculptor Kira Freije populates her gallery with figures built from welded steel strips and found objects, their faces, hands and feet cast in aluminium.
Not all are human; some resemble birds in flight, others, her dog Laska.
Publicist Daisy Taylor with British artist Kira Freije’s presentation during a press preview for the 2026 Turner Prize.
PHOTO: EPA
Freije, 41, prescribes no meaning to her figures, rather a “universal feeling” that might be reflected back onto those who spend time with them.
An installation titled Unspeak The Chorus by artist Kira Freije.
PHOTO: AFP
The prize winner will be announced on Dec 10 and be awarded £25,000 (S$42,300), with the other shortlisted artists receiving £10,000.
Previous winners include Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Damien Hirst.
Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, who chairs the prize jury, said the four artists’ presentations “reflect the energy and diversity of contemporary British art today”.
“Art has a unique power to bring people together, open new perspectives and spark conversations that extend far beyond the gallery.”