# Nnena Kalu wins the Turner Prize in a first for artists with learning disabilities

Event date: December 9, 2025 - British artist Nnena Kalu won the Turner Prize for her wrapped sculptures and drawings, becoming the first artist with a learning disability to take the award.

Turner Prize goes to an artist once treated as outside the mainstream

Nnena Kalu has won the 2025 Turner Prize, a decision that gives one of Britain's best-known contemporary art awards a landmark first. Kalu, who is autistic and has learning disabilities, became the first artist with a learning disability to take the prize after the jury chose her work over three other shortlisted artists.

The supplied reports say the winning body of work included drawings and sculptures made from wrapped fabric, rope, tape, clingfilm, repurposed plastics, cable ties and VHS tape. The pieces were displayed at Bradford's Cartwright Hall Art Gallery as part of this year’s shortlist exhibition. The jury described her practice as bold, compelling and uniquely powerful, and Tate Britain director and jury chair Alex Farquharson said the selection was based on the quality of the work rather than Kalu’s neurodivergence.

That distinction matters because Kalu's win has been framed not as a symbolic gesture but as a judgment about artistic strength. Farquharson said the choice was about “interest in, and a real belief in, the quality and uniqueness of her practice,” while also acknowledging that the award breaks down barriers that have long kept neurodiverse artists at the margins of mainstream institutions. The Guardian report quoted him saying the win begins to erase the boundary between neurotypical and neurodiverse art.

The ceremony also carried a broader message about visibility. Charlotte Hollinshead, Kalu’s studio manager and artistic facilitator, accepted on her behalf and said Kalu has faced discrimination for years. Her comments cast the prize as a reversal of assumptions about who gets to be seen as a serious contemporary artist. The Guardian also reported that Kalu wore a rosette reading “Idol, Legend, Winner, Whatever,” a small detail that fit the event’s celebratory tone.

The Turner Prize remains one of the most closely watched markers in British art. It is awarded to an artist born or working in Britain for an outstanding exhibition or presentation over the previous year, and the shortlist often reflects current disputes about identity, belonging and the role of contemporary art. This year's other nominees were Mohammed Sami, Rene Matić and Zadie Xa.

Kalu's victory will likely be discussed on two levels. First, it confirms that the jury saw her work as technically and visually distinctive enough to stand beside the year’s strongest competitors. Second, it forces a conversation about access and recognition in the art world, especially for artists whose communication styles or support needs have historically narrowed their opportunities.

The reports say Kalu was born in Glasgow in 1966 to Nigerian parents and later moved to London, where she began practicing art at a day center in Tooting in the late 1980s. Her path to the Turner Prize included exhibitions in Belgium, participation in Glasgow International, a first commercial gallery show last year and a first major institutional exhibition in Norway in 2025. The trajectory is striking, but the core of the story remains the same: the Turner Prize jury placed her work at the center of contemporary British art.