What is a Fringe Festival?
“A Fringe is a grassroots Festival with the freedom to celebrate and exchange. It’s a Fringe of a Festival or a Festival of Fringe Arts made possible by the people who take part. Developed organically across the globe, they are unique in style and form every time they open. A Fringe Festival exists to serve the participating artists and audiences through building awareness. They professionally umbrella an accessible development opportunity by administrating a programme of events and creating a platform and marketplace for new and established art forms. They are constituted through innovation and creative expression. The Fringe ethos is, ‘If you want to do it you can… Fringes offer an alternative!” www.worldfringe.com
In this instance, OUR TURN, Bradford Visual Arts Festival, is the fringe event to The Turner Prize, taking place in Bradford as a part of Bradford 2025’s year of cultural celebrations.
What is The Turner Prize?
Find out about one of the best-known visual arts prizes
Each year the Turner Prize jury shortlist four artists for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation.
The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist. ‘British’ can mean an artist working primarily in Britain or an artist born in Britain working globally. The prize focuses on their recent developments in British art rather than a lifetime’s achievement.
Its name comes from J.M.W. Turner. The nineteenth-century artist J.M.W. Turner was a figure who had been innovative and controversial in his own day. One critic commented that his work Schloss Rosenau was ‘the product of a diseased eye and a reckless hand.’ Today he is considered to be one of the greatest British artists. Turner had wanted to establish a prize for young artists himself.
The prize has no age limit But this wasn’t always the case. In 1991–2016 the prize had an age limit of 50. This played an important role in introducing the work of emerging artists. The lift of the age restriction recognises that artists can experience a breakthrough in their work at any age.
The award is £55,000 £25,000 goes to the winner and £10,000 each goes to the other shortlisted artists.
The jury decides the winner on the day of the announcement The decision is made through a series of discussions until they arrive at a consensus.
A celebrity presents the prize Previous presenters have included Richard Attenborough, Paul Smith, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Mario Testino and Madonna.
