East London design collective Assemble makes 2015 Turner Prize shortlist

They wowed us in 2010 with their pop-up cinema in an old petrol station in Clerkenwell, The Cineroleum, and the following year they won us over with Folly for a Flyover in Hackney Wick. Now, after 15 years of transforming unusual spaces, the east London collective Assemble has been shortlisted for the 2015 Turner Prize for the revival of a cluster of derelict terraced houses in Liverpool, Granby Four Streets. Borne out of the DIY-culture and the flurry of pop-ups like Bold Tendencies that took London by storm a few years ago, the collective of 18 designers and architects is an exciting choice, and a first for the often sensational art prize.

Shortlisted alongside Assemble are three artists engaging with political and social issues in less obvious ways, Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbel and Nicole Wermers.

Camplin is shortlisted for her project at the South London Gallery, The Military Industrial Complex. What she describes as “the Invented Life” of her work takes the shape of a study room inviting people to explore ideas about “consensus reality.”

Commissioned by the Common Guild Glasgow, Canadian artist Janice Kerbel is recognised for her operatic performance DOUG at the Mitchell Library, with nine songs following its protagonist through nine catastrophic events.

Hailing from Germany, Wermers was nominated for her exhibition Infrastruckur at Herald Street gallery in London, which explores design, class and taste, and features chairs with fur coats.

All four must now make new work for the exhibition which will run from October 2015 to January 2016 at Tramway in Glasgow, with the prize announced in December.