Jesse Darling

Using everyday materials, Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling (1981) creates sculptures and installations that question systems. ‘I’m interested in stories that come to life through materials.’ The result is a body of work that balances between relics, carnivalesque figures, and discarded remains.

By working with everyday waste and debris, Darling foregrounds the often messy reality of human existence, while interrogating the social and political forces that determine what and who is considered valuable. Darling also drew inspiration from the nearly forty altars once dispersed throughout the church, sites where different groups of people gathered – each with their own rituals and connections. In Godsworth, these places for encounters and meaning-making reappear as seemingly provisional assemblages, capable of shifting into new forms at any moment.

Cover image: Jesse Darling, installation from Godsworth, 2026, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam | photo: Maarten Nauw