Kaur, who grew up in Glasgow, was awarded for her 2023 solo exhibition Alter Altar which explored how cultural memory is embedded in everyday objects and rituals, reports Marco Marcelline

Kaur won for her solo exhibition *Alter Altar*, Credit: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

Walthamstow based artist Jasleen Kaur won the Turner Prize on Tuesday night (3rd December), beating out three other nominees for the prestigious £25,000 award.

Kaur, who grew up in Glasgow, was awarded for her 2023 solo exhibition Alter Altar which explored how cultural memory is embedded in everyday objects and rituals.

The art show consisted of sculpture, installation, prints, and sound including Sufi Islamic music, harmonium, bells, and pop music played out of a car stereo.

Kaur, 38, also reworked Axminster carpet, bottles of blessed Irn Bru, political flyers and salvaged family photographs in an effort to show how political ideologies are carried in community spaces.

A centrepoint of the exhibition is a red Ford Escort which is draped in a large doily. It references her father’s first car in this country and the Indian migrants who came to Scotland and the UK to work in textile factories.

In a glowing review of the “affecting” exhibition, The Guardian’s Adrian Searle said Kaur had managed to put together what “feels like an intimate conversation with a stranger” by combining “pleasure and the political, the personal and the communal”.

Kaur making her acceptance speech, Credit: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

In her acceptance speech at Tate Britain Kaur took aim at Tate’s ties to organisations that are “complicit in what the UN and ICJ [International Court of Justice] are finally getting closer to saying is a genocide of the Palestinian people”.

As she made the speech, broadcast live on BBC News, over 100 art workers and pro-Palestine activists demonstrated outside the central London venue the ceremony was being held in.

Tate has been urged to cut ties with organisations and companies including Barclays, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP), Outset Contemporary Art Fund, the Zabludowicz Art Trust, and Zabludowicz Art Projects.

Campaigners on this issue have pointed to Tate’s ongoing refusal to “work with anyone associated with the Russian government” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, stating the same approach should be taken in regards to Israel and companies that operate there.

To further their point, protesters projected a selection of artworks from the Gaza Biennale, a roaming exhibition of 60 artists in and from Gaza on Tate Britain’s exterior.

Kaur reacting to her win, Credit: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

Accepting the award from actor James Norton while wearing a scarf emblazoned with the Palestinian flag, Kaur said that calling for divestment “should not risk an artist’s career or safety”.

She continued: “We’re trying to build consensus that the ties to these organisations are unethical, just as artists did with Sackler.” The Sackler family has been hit by a boycott campaign for their links to the opioid epidemic in North America.

Kaur added: “I’ve been wondering why artists are required to dream up liberation in the gallery but when that dream meets life we are shut down. I want the separation between the expression of politics in the gallery and the practice of politics in life to disappear.”

She finished her speech saying: “I want the institution to understand that if you want us inside, you need to listen to us outside. Free Palestine.”

Kaur’s winning exhibition is on display alongside the other three nominees Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Delaine Le Bas at Tate Britain until 16th February 2025.

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