Last week was the 10th birthday of The Hari London and we've been thinking about all the fruitful projects we've done in collaboration with this iconic hotel. It's also the fifth anniversary of The Hari Art Prize. While we're waiting for this year's winners to be announced on the awards ceremony on the 17th of November, we decided to converse with the previous winners to see what they're up to now.
Kialy Tihngang - Winner in 2023
What has winning the Hari Art Prize done for your practice?
It was a massive exhale of long-held breath. I had been working myself to the bone since graduating, making very little money and getting myself into debt, which unfortunately is an all-too common story for many emerging artists. The prize allowed me to clear my debt, have some consistent income, and work at a more sustainable, healthy pace. Since then, the visibility has allowed me to connect with other artists, and crucially, to meet my gallerist, Hector from Soup. So it has been pretty pivotal.
What was your initial reaction on finding out you had won?
I really didn’t believe it. They described my practice and said my name, but it still didn’t sink in. The hotel made me a cookie in the shape of one of my sculptures and it STILL didn’t sink in. After the prize giving, I walked around London for a few hours in a total daze. It only felt real when I told my mum and heard her excitement and pride; it was nice to have something tangible to point to as a payoff for all of the missed calls and tunnel vision. And obviously it felt superlatively real when the money hit my bank account.
What is the importance of non-traditional gallery spaces?
Deeply important. Artists need as many avenues as possible to exhibit their work and to put it in dialogue with audiences. The white cube gallery space doesn’t work for every artist, and nor should it work for every artist. Non-traditional gallery spaces, artist run spaces, squats, online galleries, whatever it is that increases opportunities and access for artists, can only be a good thing. This is especially true as we see whole waves of gallery closures and controversies in my hometown, Glasgow, and across the UK more widely.
What advice would you give the artists entering the Hari Art Prize?
Definitely just take a punt and do it; it’s free to enter, and the application process (if I’m remembering correctly from all those years ago…) is reasonably quick and painless, so you can’t lose. In terms of the entry itself, I’d give the usual advice of having very high quality imagery (borrow a camera if you need to), and having detailed but concise descriptions. Judges have way less time than you think to assess however many hundreds of entries there are, so make quick and simple for them to 'read' your work.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently putting together my first solo show in Cardiff, at Ffotogallery, which will open in February next year. ‘Opportunity Costs’ will bring together previous bodies of work exploring ideas of corporate villainy. Digital photomontages from Lean Six Sigma (2023), a catalogue for supervillain office decor, will be printed at an unprecedented scale, whilst Out Of Office (2025), a time-travelling body horror about workplace misogynoir and the extremes of extractivism, will be screened alongside billboard-scale hand-painted posters.
I’m also working towards a solo show at Dundee Contemporary Arts, opening in April next year. Here I’ll be using moving image, textiles, and sculpture to imagine an abandoned research centre for amphibiousness, mysteriously defunded (or perhaps destroyed) midway through its pursuit of synthesising borderless, multiplanar movement for African people.
Libby Bove - Winner in 2024
What has winning the Hari Art Prize done for your practice?
When I was awarded the prize I’d very recently graduated from my BA, a course that I’d started in depths of lockdown. When I began, a career as an artist never felt like an actual tangible possibility, but a few months in I made a pact with myself to pour everything I had into it, and to see if I could make it work. Winning the Hari art prize had a huge impact on my practice, giving me confidence to keep pouring everything in, and that all the long hours were worth it. The prize money allowed me to fully commit to my practice, covering daily living costs whilst working in the studio and touring, allowing me to take risks and experiment with works, and find the joy in making again. Two years in and I’m still managing to make being an artist my thing, full time. Having the backing of this prize at such a pivotal point in my practice has been a big factor in this and I’m so grateful for all the support.
What was your initial reaction on finding out you had won?
It didn’t feel real at first, I remember hearing my name being read out and still not quite registering, and then realising that I better start moving my feet. Much of the evening after that was a kind of hazy excitement, as what it actually meant started to sink in: I was being handed a safety net that would allow me to make the work I really wanted to make, and to continue to tour The Museum of Roadside Magic project, without having to take on other work.
Whilst I was very measured with the majority of the funds, when I got home I did go on what I can only describe as a spree in the haberdashers, buying the fabric, trimmings and ribbons of my dreams in full kid-in-a-sweetshop mode.
What is the importance of non-traditional gallery spaces?
I think art and creativity are inherent to human nature, and the more art we surround ourselves with, the better. Bringing contemporary art into a shared environment or workspaces allows for new connections to be made. There is something lovely about the possibility of encountering an artwork unexpectedly, perhaps while going about your day, and having it spark curiosity, conversation or a new perspective. For artists I think the opportunity to present work beyond the confines of the traditional gallery is really important, offering a chance to think differently about how work is presented and experienced, and to reach beyond the familiar art-world audience.
What advice would you give the artists entering the Hari Art Prize?
This probably goes for all open calls really, but show you best work, show the work you love, show the work that really sings to the rest of your practice. Not knowing much about the Hari art prize when I applied, I got very hung up on exactly what I should apply with, second guessing myself that It would be what the selectors wanted. In the end I chose the works that I really loved, and I’m glad I did. Make sure your website and socials are giving the reader a really clear explanation of your practice, as these will most likely form part of the decision too.
What are you working on now?
I’ve just finished The Way of the Roadwytch, a solo show with Staffordshire St, which allowed me to deeply focus on one aspect of the Roadlore world. Centred around a moving image work, with ceramics, textiles and photography I was able to explore the minutiae of ritual roadside rescue and vehicular resurrection. It was a great experience getting to spend so much time expanding on this one element of the world, and I really do hope I get to do it again soon. Next stop Auto-electrical celebrations.
I’m still touring with The Museum of Roadside Magic Project which has grown into a many headed beast with a coven of Roadwytch collaborators. The Museum is still gracing folk fairs, fields and arts institutions, but we are expanding our work into funerary ritual, and this year we’ll be joining Jimmy Cauty and co, for the building of The People’s Pyramid in Birkenhead later this month. With more dates soon to be announced on @musueumofroadsidemagic.
Beth McAlester - Winner in 2025
What has winning the Hari Art Prize done for your practice?
Most notably, it has given me a degree of financial security and with that, the freedom to spend six or seven days a week in the studio. It takes a long time to find the conditions in which you work best, spending so much time with the work has allowed for a degree of development that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. I love that feeling of immersion as it forces me to eventually just trust my instincts. Some elements of my work have started to feel too well trodden, so I have been trying to take the last few months to experiment much more with compositions, colour and scale. I’ve become a lot more comfortable with making work that isn’t amazing and is destroyed right after finishing it, sometimes a painting’s only purpose is to get me to the next one.
What was your initial reaction on finding out you had won?
Shocked at first and then a bit bemused, it felt very surreal. At the time I had been applying to a lot of open calls and had gotten very acquainted with rejection emails or just no reply at all. I’d stopped taking it personally and made peace with rejection as another part of the process. I felt the work I was making was important and the outcome of an application wouldn’t deter me from making it. That was definitely the headspace I was in at the time so when I heard my name announced I genuinely couldn’t speak for four or five seconds (this is a long time when a room of people are looking at you and waiting for a reaction). I don’t think I was even trying to search for words though, I kind of just lost it for a little bit which was great.
What is the importance of non-traditional gallery spaces?
Non-traditional spaces provide alternative ways of interacting with art outside of the expectations of the gallery, for both viewers and artists. At the end of the day, many galleries function as retail spaces, so exhibiting outside of that framework helps to shift discussion away from status or speculative value and more towards the work itself. Galleries can also just feel impenetrable to some, and where we encounter art can challenge the idea that it is something only certain groups of people actively seek out, rather than something that can form part of anyone’s everyday experience.
However, I think it’s important to consider what makes a space genuinely accessible. Moving art outside the white cube doesn’t automatically remove the social or cultural barriers that can exist around it, these can definitely take different forms elsewhere. For me, the value of a non-traditional gallery space lies in its capacity to actually facilitate meaningful encounters with art.
What advice would you give the artists entering the Hari Art Prize?
All the basic things we've heard before: read the rules, try to abide by them, take good pictures, etc. Beyond that, particularly for those just leaving art school or starting out, I’d say don’t worry about rejection. There are so many factors at play that are outside of your control and not an insignificant degree of chance involved. I feel for the jurors, they have a difficult job and great work inevitably gets left on the cutting room floor. That doesn’t necessarily reflect on the quality of what you’re doing. I’d encourage people not to waste too much time imagining what hypothetical people want to see and just go enter something you find urgent or interesting. There is no one x factor that makes a work successful, so take it seriously, but don’t let the outcome dictate how you feel about your practice.
What are you working on now?
My instinct has often been to make small work rapidly as it felt like there was never any time to sit with and resolve a larger painting, so I’ve been moving slower, utilising scale more intentionally. Within the paintings themselves, I’ve been kind of entranced by the palette towers built annually by unionist communities in Northern Ireland: their structures, the repetition and collective ritual of it all. I’m interested in representing a hidden beauty I feel they possess while also sitting with the discomfort and antagonism I feel towards them. It’s a stage-managed enigma on both ends. I want to make something that functions as an artwork but also as a sensitive form of communication, drawing on an obscure moment within a specific culture. I’ve been thinking a lot about the dialogue this work has with the “real” and the varying levels of narrative I employ as points of entry. I think these paintings sit in the doldrums, in the calm before a storm, without dictating what that storm might look like, or even whether one is coming.