Visual Art Nominations 2026
Andy Goldsworthy
Fifty Years
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years transformed the Royal Scottish Academy building into an artwork, exploring humanity's relationship with natural and urban landscapes. Conceived with the National Galleries of Scotland in response to the building, the exhibition blurred the boundaries between nature and architecture and spoke to Goldsworthy's deep connection with the Scottish countryside. Combining extraordinary craftsmanship with conceptual depth, it created an immersive experience that challenged audiences to rethink their place within the wider ecological system. Ambitious in scale and visually stunning, it illustrated the artists philosophy on the environment and the interconnections between the body and the earth.
Linder
Danger Came Smiling
Linder: Danger Came Smiling celebrated five decades of one of Britain's most influential and uncompromising artistic voices. Spanning photomontage, photography, performance, fashion and sculpture, the exhibition traced Linder's trailblazing career from the punk movement of 1970s Manchester to her continued impact on contemporary culture. Through her distinctive use of photomontage and image-making, Linder has consistently challenged ideas of gender, sexuality, consumerism and power, creating work that remains as provocative and relevant today as when it was first made. Bold, inventive and visually arresting, Danger Came Smiling demonstrated the enduring power of art to disrupt, provoke and transform how we see the world.
Julianknxx
Shifting / Spirit / Time
An ambitious multi-screen film installation that expands the possibilities of performance, film and sound. Building on Julianknxx's Chorus in Flight, it transforms a live performance into a living archive, exploring how memory, language and culture survive across generations through repetition, rhythm and collective voice. Centred on the recurring refrain “Wai Wai Wai”, the work moves between poetry, song and ritual, creating a rich meditation on loss, belonging and cultural inheritance. Through imagery, monumental staging and enveloping sound, Julianknxx invites audiences into a shared act of remembrance, demonstrating the power of art to preserve the past while imagining new collective futures.





