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Roger Hiorns' Harper Road blue crystals artwork shortlisted for Turner Prize

London SE1 website team

Artist Roger Hiorns, who last year turned a derelict council flat in Harper Road into a cavern of blue crystals, has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Seizure by Roger Hiorns
Seizure was set within a condemned low-rise block between Harper Road and Symington House on the Lawson Estate

Roger Hiorns has been shortlisted for the prestigious £25,000 prize on the basis of his Seizure installation on the Lawson Estate in Harper Road and for his exhibition at Corvi Mora in Kennington.

In a commission by Artangel Hiorns took over a derelict flat in a condemned low-rise block between Symington House and Harper Road.

Speaking to the London SE1 website last August, Hiorns explained how he had cut through from the floor above to insert a metal tank into the flat.

"We filled it up with 90,000 litres of boiling hot copper sulphate solution and then watched it go. That was the simplicity of it."

Three weeks later the tank was drained and a door inserted to allow visitors wearing wellies and gloves to step in to the crystal-lined space.

Due to popular demand the exhibition, which opened in late August, continued till the end of November 2008.

New Cross-based Hiorns is no stranger to Southwark; he used to have a studio in Long Lane before Empire Square was built.

The other artists on the shortlist are Enrico David, Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright.

The Turner Prize award is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists.

The Prize, established in 1984, is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work.

Work by the shortlisted artists will be shown in an exhibition at Tate Britain opening on 7 October. The winner will be announced at Tate Britain on 7 December during a live broadcast by Channel 4.

The jury is chaired by Tate Britain director Stephen Deuchar and includes Charles Esche, broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, critic Jonathan Jones and Dr Andrea Schlieker.

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