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we took our work off the walls. some of us ripped it apart, some of tangled it and some of us drew all over it. we then individually stuck it wherever we felt like we wanted to. it was fun and liberating to get rid of the attachment to my work. i ended up with results i never would have thought of creating. it was also great that all of our work was intertwined together, it was a satisfying way to summarise the end of unit 1.

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this is a collage of the picture i took of a tower two weeks ago. i thought about a tower being split into two, the space in between. an infinite base that emits signals to those who are meant to receive it, whoever it may be. all those strangers, the invisible signals will connect them like a motherboard or intricate veins strung together. it's like a highway of souls glued together only by emotions.

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this is an a3 oil pastel piece i made in the past week. i thought of a time in the near future where humans could have grand, towering prosthetic limbs, purely for the visual appeal. of course you would have to willingly sacrifice your real legs. the little girl is defensively walking with her artificial legs in front of the masses. i think i made this because of unsolved feelings of persecution.

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i am in friendship

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he Turner prize has given us some great characters. Grayson Perry was a little-known alternative potter before this annual competition for avant garde British art launched him as a commentator and media personality. Tracey Emin became a national sensation when she showed her unmade bed in 1999, though she lost out to Steve McQueen - yet another talent for whom it was the beginning of great things.

But it's a fair bet that no individual will become rich or famous as a result of this year's Turner exhibition at Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery. This is no slight on the 80 or so people I count behind the five collectives on this year's shortlist. It's just that you have to scan the small print to even find these folks' names. The Turner has turned on itself.

Will the winner be Black Obsidian Sound System, Gentle/Radical, Project Art Works, Array Collective or Cooking Sections - and should we even care? For the traditional competitive spirit hardly seems relevant when it's all about collectivism. The Turner in 2019 ended with the artists sharing the award. In 2020, the prize was replaced with bursaries. It appears competition is such anathema for today's young artists or is judged by the organisers to be so inappropriate that the whole idea of a glamorous and controversial art prize is dying. This is not something that's happening in other art forms. The "death of the author" may have been announced some time ago but they still keep winning the Booker.

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Yet there's the rub. You could argue this year's shortlist is a pure distillation of all that makes the Turner different. For while prizes in other arts recognise "talent" in a fairly traditional sense, the Turner - with its history of pickled cows, found footage and fag ends - has always challenged conventional ideas of creativity. The reason it enraged some people so much 30 years ago was that it rewarded readymades that seemed to show no effort or skill.

So this year's collectivist Turner could be seen as a return to the prize's most provocative traditions. Few people these days get upset by artists using found objects and the idea of the conceptual artist is a commonplace. But what about art that's not made by a single mind at all? There is a fine paradox in an art prize abolishing the individual, a real assault on our basic assumptions about the nature of the artist.

The contenders

This collective of audio-visual artists greeted its nomination by criticising the " exploitative practices " of Tate, the Turner's main sponsor, so expect a spiky showing by a community of 'queer, trans and non-binary Black and people of colour involved in art, sound and radical activism'.

Cardiff's Riverside is home to this group that wants to put down roots in a community. The aim is to give everyone the chance to participate in events from film screenings to performance art, knocking on every door to introduce itself.

Since the 1990s this Hastings outfit has worked with people with autism, learning and other intellectual disabilities to create art reflecting a neurodiverse perspective on the world. It has widely exhibited internationally.

Northern Ireland's history and religious divisions provide combustible material for Array. It seeks to create a new, non-sectarian culture using rituals and folklore, as well as making performance and protest art about abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and gentrification.

With two members, Cooking Sections is the smallest collective on the shortlist. Its theme is food, not as art or cuisine but as an image of capitalist systems that alienate us from nature with dyes and other lies.

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Turner prize 2021: a collective effort to make art radical again

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he Turner prize has given us some great characters. Grayson Perry was a little-known alternative potter before this annual competition for avant garde British art launched him as a commentator and media personality. Tracey Emin became a national sensation when she showed her unmade bed in 1999, though she lost out to Steve McQueen - yet another talent for whom it was the beginning of great things.

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The White Pube | Turner Prize 2021, Bumper Pack

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This week’s text is a review of the 2021 Turner Prize! This year, there’s been so much noise about the nominees being collectives, and I went up to the Herbert on a press trip to go have a look round with the rest of the press pack - felt like i literally HAD to review it lmao. SO, a long chunky ext…

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towards the beginning of the exercise, a part of the group decided to lay down on the pathway on the bridge. as i was going through my footage, i saw that one man had a curious smile on his face as if he was very entertained. however the next man wore a frown as if it was a nuisance to him. both expressions were very animated, it was not subtle at all.

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as i was brushing my teeth, i spat the toothpaste out on the sink. first, i realised i had spaced off yet again and the sink was nearly overflowing. second, i watched the toothpaste foam up to form a cloud. it was so seamless & hypnotising to see. even if the water pressure broke the cloud, the strays would eventually re-join the cloud by a single strand. it almost looked like veins connected to each other. it was very pretty

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i visited an art exhibition showing the works of Haitian artist Hervé Télémaque. his work was so puzzling, a wonderland of pop colours, identities and cartoon-like images. i was especially drawn to this piece titled "L'ANNONCE FAITE À MARIE" (the announcement of mary). i felt as if i was tricked by fantasy. i'm eagerly walking into a place full tainted illusions. of course the artist's meaning was different but this is just my perception of the work.

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plate of leftover offerings for the event, i like how pure the food is. they are just singular ingredients, like elements of alchemy

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my grandma, my little brother and my mum with wheatgrass tucked behind their ears. it feels like we are wearing a uniform, some kind of physical symbol to identify each other

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i arrived home just in time for a cultural event in my country (Nepal). the celebration is called Dashain & commemorates a victory of the gods over the demons. i'm not too religious but i attended since its important to my family. the adults gave me blessings by putting rice on my forehead and wheatgrass behind my ear.

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i visited home for the weekend. on the journey, someone had left unidentified trash next to the highway. i can't really make out what it is either (looks like bent metal?). but it looked so pitiful and cold. maybe because i started to humanize it, thinking its long legs look so gentle & bruised & that i should go check up on it.

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i visited the serpentine gallery & saw this building which is where the cafe is located. i was very attracted to the large slopes & bone-like structure. it was refreshing compared to the more traditional buildings in the area.

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my bus stopped outside of a construction site, an elevator was going up the tower. it made me feel like i had machine wings & i was flying all the way to the top right there from the bus.

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a photo i took a couple of days ago. i had been diligently growing out my hair for about a year or so, i wanted very long hair again. the current length was the awkward shoulder "not short not long" length. i think i despise being in limbo. the uncertainty irritated me so much. i impulsively grabbed some scissors and chopped it all off again. i was back to square one but i felt peaceful & stable. even though i could be mistaken as a boy now.

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this is a scan of a fashion catalogue from one of my most favourite designers, Yohji Yamamoto. it is the A/W 1993 catalogue, photographed by Ferdinando Scianna. i like the uniformity. the identical flowing white shirts, hands held tight, young boys of the same age and the beautiful landforms. there is purity, the truest freedom.

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a screenshot of my google search history a few months ago. my grandma only talks to me in traditional dialect that i just do not understand. she gets irritated when i ask what certain words mean and wants me to find out independently .. or else.

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an image i took of my favourite area of the exhibiton

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i discovered an artist named Wu Yulu, a farmer from China. Yulu taught himself how to make robots from scrap metals & anything he could possibly find lying around. this is a child robot that is programmed to walk around in cirlces.

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i stumbled upon this documentary about outsider art. it is about marginalised groups of society who do not have any previous history/education/engagement with art or any interest in the art world. yet they seem to have an innate urge to create & have such unrestrained, raw imagination. where does that come from? there is no obligation to make art, yet it pours out of them. it also questions the label "outsider" & why there's even segregation in the first place.

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no matter how many times, we couldn't keep straight faces