The Turner Prize exhibition comes to Bradford's Cartwright Hall Gallery as part of Bradford 2025

“I’m incredibly proud to be able to bring the Turner Prize to Bradford, and not just Bradford but regionally across the North,” says Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford 2025. “To host this prestigious prize, having these four artists and their work to be part of our year of culture and being able to give people access to the very best of British contemporary art right on their doorstep is wonderful. I know audiences will find something for themselves in the exhibition; we are thrilled to welcome it here.”

The show, which it’s been estimated could bring up to 100,000 visitors to Bradford, is certainly one of the highlights of the 12-month cultural festival that has already delivered so many memorable events. “When we were thinking about the programming for this year, what we wanted was to bring the best of local, national and international culture here and to challenge and encourage audiences to discover something that they might not have tried before,” says Gulzar. “This exhibition is so diverse even in the form and the delivery and the artists themselves. I think it is going to be a tough decision to choose a winner – I don’t envy the judges.”

The exhibition features the work of the four artists in contention for this year’s Turner Prize – Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa – with each artist’s work occupying separate spaces in the gallery. Entering the Hall, in the main atrium, visitors can watch short films about the four artists featuring their inspirations, aims and processes which gives fascinating insight into their creative practice. In the ground floor gallery spaces we find two contrasting displays – the work of Zadie Xa and Rene Matić.

Matić, the youngest of the artists at just 28, uses photography as well as sculpture, sound, textiles, film and writing to explore in their work identity, community and love. A large calico flag hangs in the centre of the room with the words ‘no place’ on one side and ‘for violence’ on the other. The message of the installation is that despite the current backdrop of division and right-wing populism, humanity and hope can exist in the way we treat each other. Photographs around the walls show images of community, family and protest, amplified by a soundscape featuring overlapping sounds that reference protest, parties and relationships. Also on display is Restoration, a growing collection of antique black dolls salvaged by the artist.

Xa’s presentation Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything is a vividly colourful, eye-catching installation featuring painting, sound, textiles and sculpture and is partly inspired by cultural traditions from her Korean and Canadian background. In her work Xa imagines alternative worlds and explores themes such as spirituality and interspecies communication. The metallic floor reflects the work on the walls and ceiling and the overall effect is immersive, soothing and meditative.

Up on the first floor in the large wood-paneled space is the work of Nnena Kalu. Large-scale, brightly-coloured lightweight cocoon-like sculptures constructed from tubes which the artist then wraps with streams of repurposed fabric, tape, paper, rope, clingfilm and VHS tape, hang from the ceiling. On the walls are Kalu’s abstract drawings which feature swirling, overlapping lines, echoing the wrapping and twirling of her joyful sculptural works. Born in Glasgow in 1966, Kalu is an autistic, learning disabled artist with limited verbal communication; she completes her artworks on site responding to the space and character of where she is working.

In the opposite gallery – a white wall space – is the work of Mohammed Sami, who was born in Iraq and lives and works in London. Sami uses metaphor and ambiguity to create large-scale paintings about memory and conflict. While the subject matter is thought-provoking and sombre, the colour palette is warm and uplifting. There are lots of yellows and oranges, bright blues and greens. The absence of the human figure is powerfully felt in the paintings which depict scenes and locations where it feels like something is about to or has just happened. In his work questions are posed rather than answered. A large ceiling fan casts an unsettling shadow onto a small table and chairs, seen from above; a field of trampled sunflowers bears witness to some kind of struggle; a lime green military laser cuts across a dust storm.

“I think all four artists are giving audiences the opportunity to take a moment to think and reflect because we don’t often get the chance to do that today,” says Gulzar. “There is so much information coming at us constantly and opinions become facts. What the artists have done, in very different ways, is to allow us to step into each room and take from it what we want to. They have presented their version and viewers can choose how they wish to interpret it. When I think about how audiences will respond to the work, I can see babies and children, right through to 90-year-olds finding something they can respond to.”

Jill Iredale, curator at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, has co-curated the exhibition with Michael Richmond and Sophie Bullen, curators at Leeds-based arts organization Yorkshire Contemporary. “Working on the show and with each of the artists has been a real privilege,” says Iredale. “It has been such an interesting process to see how much of themselves they have put into their own section and the ways in which they have approached it. They all work in completely different areas and forms and it’s been fascinating to see how things have come together. Because it’s the Turner Prize, there has been a lot of attention focused on Cartwright Hall, so it has been slightly different than normal. I have been here for 16 years now and this is definitely a one-off experience. It’s been great.”

Ticket bookings have gone very well so far, with big numbers expected to visit the show in the first few weeks. “I’m hoping that people will come along with an open mind and enjoy looking at the displays we have created,” says Iredale. “Debate is one of the things that the Turner Prize is known for, so for me it will be interesting to see what kind of conversations come out of it. And for us at Cartwright Hall we would like people to come back for other shows and continue to support us; I hope with this exhibition we have shown off the gallery to its best advantage.”

At Cartwright Hall, Bradford until February 22, 2026. Admission free. Tickets via bradford2025.co.uk The winner of the Turner Prize will be announced on December 9, 2025 at an award ceremony at Bradford Grammar School.