UCLan professor on shortlist for Turner Prize

The Preston-based 62-year-old has become the oldest person shortlisted for the £25,000 Turner Prize after the award abolished its ban on over-50s.

She has been nominated for a show centred on larger-than-life cut-outs of 100 17th Century African slave servants brought to Europe and a work called Cotton.com, which features imagined conversations between the cotton workers of Lancashire and the slaves of South Carolina.

The Professor of Contemporary Art made her name in the 1980s as one of the leaders of the British black arts movement – both painting and curating exhibitions of similarly overlooked black female artists.

Originally from Zanzibar in Tanzania, Lubaina has been nominated for solo shows in Bristol and Oxford.

The Bristol show centred on larger-than-life cut-outs of 100 colourful figures - 17th Century African slave servants brought to Europe. Another work, Cotton.com, imagined conversations between the cotton workers of Lancashire and the slaves of South Carolina.

The Turner Prize judges praised her for ‘addressing pertinent questions of personal and political identity’.

Lubaina’s entry comes after Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, chairman of the Turner Prize jury, announced in March that artists of any age could now be shortlisted.

Lubaina is one of four artists shortlisted and their work will be displayed in an exhibition at the Feren’s Art Gallery in Hull as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations from September 26 until January 7, 2018.

She is up against British painter Hurvin Anderson, German artist Andrea Buttner and Palestinian-English artist Rosalind Nashashibi.

The winner – who will receive a £25,000 prize – will be announced at a ceremony aired live on the Turner Prize’s broadcast partner the BBC on December 5.