Members-only
London, England
About the prize
We are pleased to invite members and fellows of the Royal Society of Sculptors to submit work for a curated presentation exploring what we carry from the places we call home, curated by Hannah Payne who has chosen the theme of AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
London Art Fair, Business Design Centre in Islington, London | Private View evening - Tuesday 19 January | Open from Wednesday 20 to Sunday 24 January
A curated presentation exploring what we carry with us from the places we call home.
Following the success of the Royal Society of Sculptors’ presentation at London Art Fair 2026, At Close Quarters brings the Society’s Year of the Home to a thoughtful conclusion, marking 50 years since Cecil Thomas OBE FRBS bequeathed his home and studio, Dora House, to the Society.
The 2026 presentation demonstrated how a group of sculptural works could come together to create a curatorial conversation around home as a physical, emotional and ecological condition. Building on this approach, At Close Quarters opens a new conversation around intimacy, scale, memory and belonging, exploring what we carry with us from the places we call home.
The exhibition invites sculptural works that explore the many ways home is experienced, remembered and reimagined. Home might be understood as shelter, cultural inheritance, community or landscape; as a place left behind, reconstructed or carried forward.
To encounter something at close quarters is to attend to its details, surfaces and character from near at hand. The exhibition embraces this idea both as a curatorial approach and as an invitation to look more closely.
Bringing together works across materials, generations and lived experiences, the final selection will create unexpected connections between individual histories and shared understandings of home.
If you have any questions about your submission, please contact Eilidh McCormick, Residencies and Awards Manager via awards@sculptors.org.uk or on +44 (0)20 7373 8615
About the London Art Fair
The London Art Fair 2027 is returning for its 39th edition from Wednesday 20 to Sunday 24 January 2027. The Private View takes place on 19 January.
London Art Fair was founded in 1989 by London’s Business Design Centre in Islington, where the Fair still takes place today, with the aim of providing a space to showcase exceptional Modern and Contemporary Art, to discover and to buy. LAF has grown steadily over the years with well over 100 galleries now regularly exhibiting and 25,000 visitors attending the Fair.
The Museum Partner in 2027 is Sheffield Museums Trust, the independent charity that operates six of the city’s leading museums and heritage sites: Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, Graves Gallery, Kelham Island Museum, Millennium Gallery, Shepherd Wheel and Weston Park Museum. Shaped by more than 125 years of collecting, Sheffield’s Visual Art collection is recognised as one of the most significant in the North.
About the guest selector, Hannah Payne
Hannah Payne is a gallerist, curator and arts programmer with over 20 years’ experience across the contemporary art, design and heritage sectors.
Founder of Hannah Payne Art, a nomadic, artist-led gallery platform operating across Oxford and London, and Co-founder of DEPOT, a contemporary art fair launched in Oxford in 2024, developed with ArtSVP, Benjamin Parsons, and Fusion Arts Oxford.
She is also Programme Curator for London Art Fair (since 2021), where she shapes a programme of talks, performances and special projects that support and spotlight artists, including partnerships with Apollo, Ingram Collection and The Ingram Prize, and the fair’s annual Museum Partners.
Her practice is collaborative and strategic, focused on advancing emerging and mid-career artists, fostering dialogue and building sustainable creative communities.
