The playing field in the centre of Southampton. image © Assemble

The Turner Prize 2015, in partnership with Tate, was awarded to London-based collective Assemble for projects including the ongoing collaboration with local residents and others in the Granby Four Streets, Liverpool- the group is comprised of 18 members and the practice seeks to address the typical disconnection between the public and the process by which places are made. The £25,000 prize was presented by artist, musician and songwriter, Kim Gordon during a live broadcast on Channel 4. This prize arguably, Europe’s most prestigious contemporary visual art award is coming to Scotland for the first time. In general, The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the preceding year. 

Members of Assemble at Sugarhouse Studios, Stratford, London. image © Sophia Evans for the Observer.

Every other year, this prestigious prize leaves Tate Britain and is presented at a venue outside London. For 2015, revealed at that venue, Tramway in Glasgow, an international art-space renowned for commissioning, producing and presenting contemporary arts projects. 

The Cineroleum is a self-initiated project that transformed a petrol station on Clerkenwell Road into a cinema. image © Zander Olsen

Assemble are a London-based collective who work across the fields of art, design and architecture to create projects in tandem with the communities who use and inhabit them. Their architectural spaces and environments promote direct action and embrace a DIY sensibility. Watch the collective discuss their surprise nomination for the 2015 Turner Prize. The members of the 2015 Turner Prize Jury were: Mr Alistair Hudson, Director, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Jan Verwoert, Critic and Curator, Ms Joanna Mytkowska, Director, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Ms Kyla McDonald, Artistic Director, Glasgow Sculpture Studios.

The Brutalist Playground, in collaboration with artist Simon Terrill, an immersive installation that recreated a trio of post-war play structures out of foam. image © Assemble

Assemble is producing many projects with collaborative approach including live projects; Sugarhouse Studios, Baltic Street Adventure Playground, Durham Wharf, Goldsmiths Art Gallery, Granby Four Streets, Granby Workshop are just one of them among their projects. Assemble champion a working practice that is interdependent and collaborative, seeking to actively involve the public as both participant and collaborator in the on-going realization of the work.

Yardhouse is an affordable workspace building in Sugarhouse Yard in Stratford. image © Assemble

Goldsmiths Art Gallery. Assemble are transforming a series of found historic, listed and infrastructural spaces into a new public art gallery for Goldsmiths University. image © Assemble

exterior view of Goldsmiths Art Gallery. image © Assemble

Theatre on the fly. Assemble designed and built an experimental temporary venue for a season of new plays at Chichester Festival Theatre. image © Jim Stephenson

Green house view. The Granby Four Streets are a cluster of terraced houses in Toxteth, Liverpool that were built around 1900 to house artisan workers. image © Assemble

> via tate.org.uk