The UK’s most prestigious art award, The Turner Prize, is coming to MIMA this autumn for what promises to be one of the cultural highlights of the north-east year.

Established in 1984, the Turner Prize quickly grew into one of the world’s most feted—and fiercely debated—art honours. Named after the radical 19th-century painter J.M.W. Turner, the annual award champions groundbreaking British contemporary visual art, sparking conversation and challenging traditional ideas of what art can be. Beyond the £25,000 top prize, its true power lies in its talent for turning contemporary artists into household names overnight while shaping the broader cultural landscape. It transformed British art from a niche visual genre into front-page news, capturing public imagination through headline-grabbing works—from sliced cows to lights that switch on and off in an empty room. Over four decades, the prize’s roll call of winners reads like a living hall of fame for modern art. Heavy-hitters include iconic sculptor Anish Kapoor (1991, creator of Temenos in Middlesbrough), Rachel Whiteread (1993), Antony Gormley (1994, creator of the Angel of the North in Gateshead), Young British Artist pioneer Damien Hirst (1995), filmmaker-turned-Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen (1999), and ceramicist Grayson Perry (2003). Winning—or even just being shortlisted—instantly cements an artist’s place in cultural history.

So, yep, it’s a big deal, and for only the second time, this prestigious event is back in the region (Baltic in Gateshead had it in 2011). And this year’s shortlist takes in all manner of artistic practices that encourage audiences to engage with everything from industrial history to material culture and imagined futures. So, without further ado, let’s have a look at who’s showing us their wares this year.

Simeon Barclay is nominated for The Ruin, a spoken-word work featuring percussion by James Larter and horn by Isaac Shieh. Inspired by industrial northern English landscapes, the work examines ideas of place, class and belonging through language, music and performance. Its powerful exploration of regional identity feels particularly resonant as the exhibition arrives in Middlesbrough, a town with its own rich industrial heritage.

Kira Freije has been shortlisted for Unspeak the Chorus, an installation using metal, textiles and found materials to create sculptural forms that exist somewhere between the human and the non-human. Her work invites viewers to reflect on empathy, vulnerability and the emotional connections that bind people together.

Marguerite Humeau is nominated for Torches. Working primarily through sculpture and installation, Humeau explores humanity’s origins while imagining possible futures, combining scientific research, archaeology and speculative storytelling to create immersive works that question our place within the natural world.

Tanoa Sasraku completes the shortlist with Morale Patch, a body of work incorporating sculpture, film and works on paper. Through carefully chosen materials and symbolic forms, Sasraku examines geopolitics, extraction industries and histories of power, encouraging audiences to consider how global systems shape everyday life.

Needless to say, having the Turner Prize in the north-east once again is not only a feather in the cap for the region, but MIMA too. Since opening in 2007, this magnificent gallery has earned a national reputation for combining internationally significant contemporary art with meaningful community engagement. To that end, it’s also worth pointing out that running alongside the Turner Prize exhibition is a wider programme of events taking place across Teesside going by the name Turner on Tees. These include MIMA: Moxie (an exhibition curated by The Saturday Club of young people aged 13-16, working with the Middlesbrough Collection), Are You Alright? (a group exhibition at Darlington Library Art Gallery curated by Angela Thomas featuring new or recent work by Black artists and creatives), and Balance (a live art piece at ARC in Stockton by Adam York Gregory and Gillian Jane Lees, exploring disability, labour, the body and endurance). To discover the whole Turner on Tees programme, visit the MIMA website.

Whether you’re heading down to Teesside to debate the merits of the shortlisted works, or diving headfirst into the wider Turner on Tees events, one thing is certain: the eyes of the art world will be firmly fixed on Middlesbrough this season. All four artists present bold, thought-provoking visions, but there can only be one winner. Mark your diaries for 10 December, when the ultimate victor will be officially unveiled—giving us all a bit more time to argue over who deserves to take home the most coveted prize in art.

Turner Prize 2026 Exhibition, 26 September-29 March, MIMA, Middlesbrough, mima.art