News

Tuesday 6 December 2005

Starling swoops for Turner Prize

One of the nation's most prestigious art competitions, the Turner Prize, was last night won by Nottingham Trent University alumnus, Simon Starling. Simon, who graduated with a BA (Hons) in Photography in 1990, was one of four shortlisted artists whose work has been on show in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain in London. He was announced winner by Culture Minister David Lammy, during a live Channel 4 broadcast of the award ceremony.

Simon has attracted extensive media attention with his exhibits, including Shedboatshed, a wooden boathouse which was transformed into a boat, paddled down the Rhine and then rebuilt as a boathouse. The work reflects his fascination with pilgrimage-like journeys and the processes which transform one object or substance into another.

He discovered the shed while on a trip along the Rhine by bicycle. The decrepit structure had an oar on the side which was used for a local type of boat called a Weidling. His project involved dismantling the shed, using sections of it to build a Weidling and loading the remains of the structure into it. He then made the 10km journey down the Rhine to a museum in Basel where the shed was rebuilt.

Visitors to the Turner Prize saw not just the shed, but also evidence of the boat-building process. The work aims to raise ideas about the pressures of modernity, mass production and global capitalism.

Simon said: "I deliberately make things myself by hand, and tend to take the long way round."

Also on show was his Tabernas Desert Run, an improvised hydrogen-fuelled bicycle on which he crossed the Spanish desert. Alongside it was the watercolour of a cactus that he painted with the bicycle's only waste product - water. The work contrasts the supremely efficient cactus with man's contrived efforts and highlights exploitation of natural resources.

Programme Leader of Photography, Cary Welling, said: "We are all so proud of Simon's achievement. It is wonderful to have one of our former students win the Turner Prize and we'd like to congratulate him on this outstanding award."

She added: "While here Simon distinguished himself through his ideas-based work and by thinking about photography in a more expanded and unconventional sense. He fully deserves the acclaim - he is where he is today because of sheer hard work."

             ENDS

For more information please contact:

Dave Rogers, Press Officer, on Tel: 0115 848 2650 or via email: dave.rogers@ntu.ac.uk

Or Therese Easom, Press and Media Relations Manager, on Tel: 0115 848 6589 or via email: therese.easom@ntu.ac.uk