The 2024/2025 judges

Jeremy Millar is an artist and Head of Programme for the Writing MA at the Royal College of Art, London, where he has taught for the past fourteen years.

He has written on contemporary art and culture for over thirty years and has written for some of the world's most important artists, including Roni Horn, Tacita Dean and Pierre Huyghe amongst many others. His books include The Way Things Go, about Fischli and Weiss's film, and Place, with Tacita Dean. His writing has also appeared in the Guardian and in numerous magazines and journals including Frieze, Parkett, Afterall, Sight and Sound and Art Monthly.

Jeremy is an award-winning curator and conceived Every Day is a Good Day, the largest exhibition to date of the visual art of the American composer John Cage. He was the inaugural Director of the Brighton Photo Biennial and was Curator at The Photographers' Gallery, London.

His artwork has been exhibited internationally and he has had his films screened at Tate Modern, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Rachael Simpson is currently the Young People's Producer at V&A Dundee, where she works with the Young People's Collective (YPC) to produce a year-round programme of events, workshops, trips, podcasts and opportunities to imagine alternatives and demystify the creative sector.

Previously, Rachael was the Satellites Programme producer at Collective, Edinburgh – producing Collective's development programme for emerging creative practitioners based in Scotland. This programme was specifically developed to support young creative practitioners at a pivotal point in their practice enabling them to engage critically with each other.

She established In Session FKA GRADJOB, a yearly learning and 'unprofessional' practice programme for graduates and emerging artists, which has been running since 2017. She has worked on other learning and exhibition programmes supporting creatives at the start of their career including Edinburgh Art Festival; Cooper Gallery DJCAD; Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN); British Council Scotland; and EMBASSY Gallery.

The 2023/2024 judges

Enuma Okoro – writer and cultural curator
Sally Shaw MBE – Director of Firstsite, Colchester

The 2022/2023 judges

Ruth Millington – art historian, critic, and author of Muse (Penguin, 2022)
Sarah Munro – Director of The Baltic

The 2021/2022 judges

Jo Baring – art historian and Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art
Arike Oke – cultural leader, registered archivist, curator and museology consultant
Sutapa Biswas – artist

The 2020/2021 judges

Emma Dabiri – author, academic and broadcaster
Alastair Sooke – writer, broadcaster, and chief art critic of The Telegraph
Lubaina Himid – artist and winner of the 2017 Turner Prize
Iwona Blazwick – Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, curator, critic and lecturer

The 2019/2020 judges

Hettie Judah – art critic and writer
Sir Simon Schama – art critic, historian and writer
Karen Gregory – author
Simon Groom – Director of Modern & Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland

The 2018/2019 judges

Val McDermid – Scottish crime writer
Hammad Nasar – Curator, writer, researcher, and Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Louisa Buck – art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper

The 2017/2018 judges

Dr Gabriele Finaldi – Director of the National Gallery
Jackie Wullschlager – Chief Art Critic of the Financial Times
Jeremy Deller – Turner Prize winner
Dr David Dibosa – Course Leader for MA Curating and Collections at Chelsea College of Arts
Dr Janina Ramirez – cultural historian and broadcaster

The judges