Dissertation prize winners 2024
Meet the winners of our 2024 prize for writing on sculpture.
Through our annual Dissertation Prize, we encourage research and writing that explores sculpture in its most expansive form. We present two awards for outstanding BA and MA dissertations focused on contemporary, modern, or historical sculpture, with a prize of £250 for each.
Submissions to this year’s prize included essays that considered sculpture through engineering, wellbeing, tactility and multi-sensory artwork, sustainability, and more.
This year we’ve given the awards to Zelda Cahill-Patten (The Courtauld Institute) and Eleanor Getting (University of York). Find out more about their chosen topics below.
MA dissertation prize winner
Zelda Cahill-Patten
The Courtauld Institute, MA History of Art
Seeing with the eyes of the dead: new visual and literary contexts for the Alice de la Pole transi tomb painting
We loved this unusual, rigorously researched and wonderfully presented investigation into a fascinating mediaeval woman.
BA dissertation prize winner
Eleanor Getting
University of York, BA History of Art
Lost and found, and found again: The recontextualisation of Tracy Emin’s Baby Things and its influence on meaning
A re-examination of Emin’s work from a personal perspective, and thoroughly researched. Getting’s essay looked at how artworks are informed by and respond to social and geographic contexts; and, once removed from them, how they can be interpreted in a radically different light.
Find out more
Want to learn more about about our annual dissertation prize? Find answers to commonly asked questions and information about how to apply for next year’s prize on our website.