For the first time a collective has won the Turner Prize, the UK's most important contemporary visual art prize, awarded every year by the Tate gallery to a British artist under 50.

They are called Assemble and they are a London based collective of 15 young architects and designers, working at the intersection of architecture, design and art.
They are all between 27 and 29, making them the youngest artists ever to ever win in the 31 years' history of the prize.
The project for which they have been awarded is the urban regeneration of Toxteth, Liverpool: a project called Granby Four Streets, where they have been working for three years to refurbish houses and bring new life to a derelict area, working together with local residents, building on their 30-year-long DIY culture. In more than two decades, people from Granby have saved the area from dereliction and from plans to demolish the houses. Now 5 houses have been completed in Granby, and the next five are under construction.
As Lewis Jones, Assemble co-founder, has pointed out in an interview with Vita International: “I think it is a very good thing that this community-based work in Granby can be recognized by the Turner Prize and that boundaries between disciplines are able to be blurry areas. It is a very good thing that goes beyond us and our project, because it helps give recognition to lots of different ways of working within the field of design, art and architecture and it helps undo this culture where the art world is synonym of the up market and that is the most interesting thing that is happening in the art world”.

This award shows how art can have a positive social impact, engaging with local communities in public spaces.

For the first time the Turner Prize was presented in Scotland, in Glasgow, on the 7th of December, as the event takes place in London one year and outside London the following year.
Assemble won the prize from a shortlist of four. The three runners up were Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbe and Nicole Wermers.
Assemble were awarded the £25,000 prize, which was presented by Sonic Youth co-founder Kim Gordon during a live broadcast on Channel 4 from Tramway, a world-renowned international art-space in Glasgow.
Through the nomination to the Turner Prize, Assemble have also launched a social enterpise, called Granby Workshop, aimed “at using the prize to develop the work done in Granby and to create a long term benefit for the area”, explains Jones.
Granby Workshop sells a series of handmade projects realized by involving Granby youth. The prototypes of these products ( from fabric prints and mantelpieces to tiles, lamps, tables and door knobs) are on show at Assemble's Showroom at the Turner Prize Exhibition that opened in Glasgow on the 1st of October 2015 and takes place until the 17th of January 2016.
"The Granby Workshop makes products that are priced based on how much it costs to produce them, rather than on some kind of abstract or symbolic value that is determined by the art market”.

Photo gallery: Assemble's Showroom for Granby Workshop at Tramway, Glasgow.
©Granby Workshop/Assemble

Cover photo: Blackhorse Workshop 2014 © Ben Quinton