One of the world’s most prestigious art prizes has been awarded to a 59-year-old Glaswegian artist with autism and learning disabilities. Honoured by the 2025 Turner Prize for what the judges called her “bold and compelling” work, Nnena Kalu becomes the “first learning-disabled artist to be nominated” for the prize, “let alone win it”, said art critic Mark Hudson in The Independent .

Kalu’s large, hanging, cocoon-like sculptures, made from old VHS tape, rope and fabric, and her bright, swirling “vortex” drawings” in pen and pastel, beat the work of three other shortlisted artists. Her win “breaks down walls” between “neurotypical and neurodiverse artists”, said Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, chair of this year’s jury.

‘Seismic’ victory

“Kalu’s forms come at you with their alm

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