All four artists win Turner Prize 2019

Left-right: Tai Shani, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo. Courtesy Press Association

The four artists nominated for the 2019 Turner Prize have all been announced as winners and will share this year's award after writing a joint letter to the judges asking them to be considered as a group.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani wrote a letter to the jury saying that each of them “makes art about social and political issues and contexts we believe are of great importance and urgency” adding that they didn’t wish the issues to be “pitted against each other, with the implication that one was more important, significant or more worthy of attention than the others”.

They had not met before the Prize, but found common ground having met in Margate, where the exhibition is being held. The panel of judges was made up of Alessio Antoniolli, director of Gasworks & Triangle Network, Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of The Showroom Gallery and lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths; Victoria Pomery, director of Turner Contemporary in Margate and writer Charlie Porter, chaired by director of Tate Britain Alex Farquharson.

When Vogue magazine editor Edward Enninful presented the award he said it was an extraordinary move. "At a time of political division in Britain and conflict in much of the world, the artists wanted to use the occasion of the Turner Prize to make a strong statement of community and solidarity and have formed themselves into a collective."

After the announcement, Cammock read a joint statement saying their work was "incompatible with the competition format, whose tendency is to divide and to individualise".

They said they wanted to speak out in "an era marked by the rise of the right and the renewal of fascism, in an era of the Conservatives' hostile environment that has paradoxically made each of us and many of our friends and family again increasingly unwelcome in Britain".

They added: "Isolation and exclusion are the weapons of this hostile environment. It is this we seek to stand against by making this symbolic gesture of cohesion."

Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s work revolves around earwitness accounts given by oppressed people, including former prisoners in Syria. Helen Cammock’s film The Long Note explores the role of women in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. Oscar Murillo’s installations explore themes of labour and migration, some of which is influenced by accounts of his father’s early years as an immigrant in the UK. Finally, Tai Shani’s work blurs fact and fiction in work that takes inspiration from a 15th century feminist text, and aims to disrupt the white, male world order.

Parts of the text for this piece were taken from this Evening Standard article