News
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Turner Prize winner scoops university accolade
Celebrated artist and Turner Prize recipient Simon Starling has become Nottingham Trent University’s first-ever ‘Alumnus of the Year’. The awards – launched in recognition of the vital role former students play in raising the University’s profile through their distinctive attainments, professional success and contributions to society – is in honour of Simon’s outstanding achievements on the arts scene.
Simon, who graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a degree in photography in 1990, was selected from an impressive list of nominees. He will travel from Copenhagen to collect his award at the University’s November graduation ceremony.
He has become one of the NTU’s most high-profile alumni since 2005 when he won the prestigious – and often controversial – Turner Prize. His seminal work, Shedboatshed, a wooden shed which he had dismantled, transformed into a boat, paddled down the Rhine and then rebuilt as a shed.
Simon said: “Winning this award is a complete surprise, but a very welcome one. I have been living outside Britain for some years now and it came as a bit of a shock that I was still on the map in Nottingham. I feel I was lucky to be part of an interesting group of people who studied photography there in the late 1980s.”
He added: “Two of those people – Jeremy Millar and Will Bradley – have remained very important to me and have ended up working in related areas of art practice, but there are many others who brought so much to the table. That sense of importance of your peer group has very much affected the way I approach running my own class at the Art School in Frankfurt where I have been a professor for five years now.”
Simon has made his name as an artist fascinated by the processes involved in transforming one object or substance into another. In solo exhibitions worldwide, he has showcased installations and pilgrimage-like journeys highlighting ideas about nature, technology, economics, modernity and mass production.
Audiences are encouraged to consider the stories behind each construction and transformation – and the Turner Prize jury praised his ability to create “poetic narratives which draw together a wide range of cultural, political and historical references.”
For his latest project Simon is about to return to Toronto to recover a steel copy of a Henry Moore sculpture from the bottom of Lake Ontario. He placed the sculpture in the water two years ago where it has played host to a growing colony of zebra mussels. This work will go on show at The Power Plant in Toronto in February 2008.
Nominations for the Alumnus of the Year Award were invited from students, staff and graduates as well as employers, employees, colleagues, families and friends of Nottingham Trent University alumni.
Nottingham Trent University Alumni Officer, Clare Oswin, said: “The University is proud of all its alumni and we wanted to introduce this award to celebrate their success. We were delighted with the response we received.
“Simon is a fine example of someone whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts. It is great that he will be presented with this award at a degree ceremony so that our new alumni can be inspired by his achievements whatever career path they choose to follow.”
Acclaimed designer Aran D Higgs – another Nottingham Trent University alumnus – has been commissioned to create the stunning steel trophy for the Alumnus of the Year Award.
Aran, who studied Decorative Arts (2004) and his PGCE (2006) at the university, said: “I feel honoured that the University has approached me to design such a prestigious award, especially as it will be presented to eminent alumni like Simon Starling for years to come.”
ENDS
Notes for editors: Simon Starling will receive his Alumnus of the Year Award on November 24.
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