Portfolio is Turner Contemporary’s annual art competition celebrating local talent across Kent and Medway. It’s open to all children and young adults as well as students and staff from schools and community groups.⁠

⁠This year’s theme is Belonging, inspired by the work of artist and Turner Prize 2022 nominee Ingrid Pollard, whose major solo exhibition Carbon Slowly Turning will be showing at Turner Contemporary from 9 July 2022 – 25 September 2022.

This year Turner Contemporary has collaborated with People Dem Collective to select the chosen works.

People Dem Collective is a community organisation based in Margate. Founded by members of the Black, Brown and Diaspora communities (People of cultural heritage other than the place they were born). The collective was born out of a lived experience of lack of space, engagement and inclusion for these communities and a desire to encourage healing and transformation.

The Lived Experience Crew is an advisory board (ship-steering-go-to-crew) within People Dem Collective. We are a real mixed bag, and have representation across generations, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, education, profession, neurodiversity, and physical ability.

A note from People Dem Collective about their selection of the works that will be displayed:

“We, the People Dem Collective, Lived Experience Crew, are honoured to present to you our selection of works by young people, school classes, community groups and teachers from the community in Kent & Medway on the deeply provocative and powerful theme Belonging.

As a collective we delved deep into what Belonging meant to us, how it made us feel, how it showed up in our respective lives, and quickly discovered it was vast and complicated. We realised no aspects of our lives were untouched by its effects.

Belonging is a multi-faceted, moving, living, breathing, concept. It spans beauty, pain, love and rejection, and everything in between.

We hope you enjoy our selection, and that it provokes you to think about your own sense of belonging, and that of the people you meet but do not know.

Much love

People Dem Collective – Lived Experience Crew.”

With thanks to our funders: