On May 1, Björk – an artist and musician from Iceland, maybe you’ve heard of her – kicked off the 2025 CIRCA Prize with a screening of her theatrical epic Cornucopia on London’s Piccadilly Lights. Alongside Michèle Lamy, who also appeared at the central London launch, she will join a bunch of other leading creatives on the jury for the video art prize, now in its fifth year.
In case you’re unfamiliar, the CIRCA Prize invites early career artists to submit video works (lasting two-and-a-half minutes) for a chance at a £40,000 prize, and to realise a major public commission in 2027. This time around, all entries must respond to CIRCA’s 2025 manifesto, Refugia, which asks how we might establish a poetic and political framework for reimagining public space in a time of planetary crisis. The central themes of successful entries might span ecological rupture, forced migration, and collective memory, the organisation suggests, and consider sanctuary “not as retreat, but as resistance”.
In September 2025, 30 finalists – chosen by CIRCA’s annually-selected Curators’ Circle – will have their work screened on the iconic Piccadilly Lights and broadcast across CIRCA’s global platform. Just one of these will have their work singled out for the prize itself, as selected by a stacked jury of cultural leaders, including Björk, Lamy, artist Alvaro Barrington, ex-Vogue editor and curator Edward Enninful, Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and historian Norman Rosenthal, CIRCA founder Josef O’Connor, gallerist Ebony L Haynes, arts patron Nicoletta Fiorucci, and Tate Modern’s Catherine Wood.
And what will the winner of the 2025 CIRCA Prize receive? No less than £30,000 to support their practice, with the aim of creating a major public commission in 2027. If that’s not enough, they’ll also get a trophy custom designed by Ai Weiwei. An extra £10,000 will also be awarded to a finalist via a public vote powered by Piccadilly Lights, with online viewers able to have their voices heard from across the globe.
Want to get involved? The window for submissions is now open, and will close at midnight on June 20, 2025. Artists working across any medium – including moving image, performance, sound, dance, poetry, and digital practices – are invited to take part, as long as they’ve not yet realised a public art commission. Find out more here.