In partnership with artist Phil Toy, Spike Island is delighted to announce artist and studio holder Mary Hurrell as the Lingua Franca Award laureate 2025

Over the coming year, the mentorship and financial support provided by the Lingua Franca Award will enable the production of a new body of work in which Hurrell will focus on developing and writing vocal scores for live performance, alongside archiving performative traces as artworks. Combining spoken word, electronic music, movement, image, and sculpture, this new work will expand on her ongoing interest in the body as a fluid substance and movement as an embodied form of language. In the making of this piece, Hurrell plans to draw on long-term research into the work and legacy of artists such as Roni Horn, Meredith Monk, and Theresa Kyung Cha.

The Lingua Franca Award is dedicated to supporting artists whose works bridge the gap between visual and verbal languages at a key point in their career, in partnership with writer, artist and former Spike Island studio holder Phil Toy.

Mary Hurrell
Mary Hurrell (b.1982 Gqeberha, South Africa) is an artist, composer and vocalist based in Bristol working across music, performance, writing and sculpture exploring forms of language and movement in relation to physical and psychological experience. She is interested in states of paradox and desire in relation to identity and sensory perception, working across embodied and material processes. Central to her work is the exploration of movement as a material.

Hurrell has performed nationally and internationally with recent live performances at Bristol Beacon, Strange Brew (Bristol), Cafe OTO, IKLECTIK (London), The Old Hairdressers (Glasgow) and Jupiter Rising x Edinburgh Art Festival (Edinburgh). In 2024 she released her debut album FORMATIONS with Calling Cards Publishing followed by a UK tour to London, Manchester, Glasgow and Norwich. She has presented performances and projects at Pallant House Gallery, motor dance journal, Nicoletti Contemporary, Flat Time House, The Roberts Institute of Art, South London Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery (London), and fluent (Spain). Her work has been broadcast on NTS, Clyde Built, Resonance Extra, RTM, Radiophrenia, and reviewed in Loud And Quiet, Frieze, Figure Figure & Mousse. In 2018 EROTIC MECHANICS-mappings, a collection of Hurrell’s textual scores and collage with essays by Emily LaBarge, was published by Publication Studio London and The Bower. In 2021 ‘Blush Response’ was Awarded Because of Many Suns Prize by Collezione Taurisano. Recent artist residencies include; PRAXIS (Spain) 2023; BrittenPears Arts (UK) 2023; Gilfélagið (Iceland) 2022, Yamakiwa Gallery, (Japan) 2018 & Flat Time House (London) 2018. Mary is currently a Studio Artist at Spike Island.

Partners and Supporters

PHIL TOY
Phil Toy is a visual artist and writer of literary fiction and poetry. He is interested in the relationship of beliefs/science; reason/irrationality; two/three-dimensional worlds.      

He is a conceptual, experimental artist who takes a multidisciplinary and multimedia approach to his work. He is now focusing on the relationship of visual art and language. This has been influenced by his recent studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.  

He has exhibited work widely, nationally and internationally, as well as organising and taking part in international exchanges. He has had a long association with Spike Island as a former studio holder and committee member. He is based in Bristol.  

philtoywriterartist.com