East London Art Prize 2025 Winner’s Exhibition: Laisul Hoque

At the Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Laisul Hoque,
winner of the 2025 East London Art Prize. Hoque premieres a new installation, film, and works
on paper, each exploring micro-histories and personal memory in the context of political unrest
and turmoil in Bangladesh.

Titled The Ground Beneath Me, the exhibition positions the viewer as an observer in the artist’s
bedroom, which has been relocated in its entirety to the centre of the gallery. Laid out to the
exact footprint of the original bedroom, the installation forms an exposed room within a room,
seemingly suspended in time. The room is made conspicuous by the artist’s absence, raising
questions of where he is, and when he will return.

The Ground Beneath Me reflects on a year spent between London and Dhaka, Bangladesh,
where the artist was called due to his father’s ill health – moving between differing political and
familial landscapes, often longing to be in one after finally landing in the other. Suspended in
this way, the pain and frustration held in the room is released as visitors are invited to interact,
settle in and revisit their own personal memories.

Political turbulence in Bangladesh is a constant and looming presence. A lampshade–a
cardboard mock-up of the General Assembly Hall of the National Parliament of Bangladesh–
illuminates the room. A new series of wall-based works, Scenes from Departure (2025) features
boarding passes from the artist’s travels; marking repeated departures, each ticket is drawn
over with scenes from elsewhere, depicting fleeting encounters, periods of despair, and
moments of tranquillity. Together, these colourful drawings trace the journeys taken by the artist
while the room remained still.

Laisul Hoque was born in 1998 in Dhaka, Bangladesh and is a London-based artist whose work explores
social, personal, and familial histories. His installations and films are informed by intimate
conversations and created in collaboration with communities connected to these narratives,
forming an experiential autobiography that opens into a wider collective story.
After studying literature in Dhaka, he completed an MA in Contemporary Photography:
Practices and Philosophy at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. His work has
been shown at the Whitechapel Gallery, Barbican Centre, Experimenta India, and Alliance
Française de Dhaka. He was a finalist for the 2024 CIRCA Prize, the winner of the 2025 East
London Art Prize and a recipient of the 2025-26 FLAMIN fellowship.

Hoque will also premiere a new film, Legacy of a Heart’s Injury (2026), part of a longer work he
is making as a Film London 2025-2026 FLAMIN Fellow. It records an intimate conversation
between the artist and a friend, reflecting on their mutual grief as both contemplate the potential
loss of their fathers, only one of whom survives. Cutting to the artist’s father sitting on a beach
and speaking about politics, the film interlaces personal loss and public history, as narratives
of grief, survival, and political memory move alongside one another.

Hoque was awarded the East London Art Prize 2025 for the installation An Ode to All the
Flavours (2024), an interactive sculpture resembling an antique sodium-lit ‘Bangladeshi sweet
shop’ display counter. Previously shown at Whitechapel Gallery, the work is inspired by the
artist’s earliest memory of his father sharing his favourite childhood snack, with the sculpture
holding spice-seasoned fried gram flour flakes and fried chickpea flour balls soaked in sugar
syrup. During the installation in the Prize’s shortlisted artists’ exhibition at Nunnery Gallery in
early 2025, the snacks were replenished daily by Oitij-jo, a charity that celebrates the cultural
heritage and diversity of the Bengali diaspora with a social enterprise catering wing.

Sophie Hill, Director of Arts & Events at Bow Arts, said: “The East London Art Prize is very special
in giving an artist the opportunity and freedom to develop a solo show with no agenda or
constraints. Hoque’s exhibition truly embodies this spirit of freedom and experimentation; in his
boldest installation yet, he invites us into his bedroom, takes us on his journeys, and moves us
to share our own memories in the context of crossing continents, politics and personal grief.”
Hoque was selected by panellists Jonny Tanna, Founder of Harlesden High Street, journalist
Louise Benson, artist Phoebe Collings-James, and Sam Wilkinson, Director of Public Art at UCL,
from a shortlist of 12 artists. The 2025 iteration of the East London Art Prize received almost 900
submissions, all by artists and collectives living or working within the ‘E’ postcode.

All Image credit: Laisul Hoque

For more info please see: https://bowarts.org/event/east-london-art-prize-2025-winners-exhibition-laisul-hoque/