The Turner Prize committee has announced that this year’s prize will be awarded to Chris Grayling for his dystopian work, “Railway Timetable in May”.
A committee member told us, “This work is profound. There is the promise of a train within the timetable. A promise of travel, of going somewhere exciting, such as Oldham. The station fills with expectant passengers but no train arrives. The promise is taken from them by the hand of uncaring and unsympathetic anonymous bureaucracy. Or, the train fills with passengers and departs but the passengers never get to their destination. It’s really moving and a very deserving winner.”
The judges remarked that there was a very dystopian feel to this year’s winner’s shortlist. One told us, “A work entitled simply, “Universal Credit” was the runner up with a late entrant, “Brexit Deal” in third place. It really captured a prevailing mood that the country is falling apart.”
Grayling also beat off competition from Rochdale artist, Orla Board. Her work featured an arrangement of poop scoop bags on a lonely tree in Broadfield Park.
One judge told us, “It really was interesting. You had the tree with its autumn bounty of fruit. Fruit that, provides animals with winter sustenance. But then you get there and the fruit is all in a plastic bag. A squirrel eats and dies as the bag lodges in its stomach. The park is a place of joy and leisure but really hides a grim reality. That it’s also totally poo when you take the plastic wrapping off it. It’s decaying, a swirling vortex of entropy.”
It’s understood that Mr Grayling was unable to attend the award ceremony as he was stuck on a rail replacement bus.
