Chloe Carroll is the winner of the 2020 NEON Curatorial Award for her proposal, Illuminations.

The award was established in 2012 to champion curatorial excellence, and was part of an ongoing partnership between the Whitechapel Gallery and NEON. The prize celebrated the exchange of ideas and innovations in presenting contemporary art and aimed to build links between emerging curators in London and across Greece.

For the 2020 edition of the NEON Curatorial Award, participants were invited to consider the theme of ‘public space’ through the lens of the Covid-19 pandemic, responding to the question: Has our understanding of public space changed through this shared global experience? Winner Chloe Carroll received the award from Dimitris Daskalopoulos at a ceremony held at the Whitechapel Gallery on Thursday 27 October 2022, postponed for two years owing to the Covid-19 pandemic

The NEON Award 2020 judging panel commented: Carroll’s proposal responds to the theme of ‘public space’ through the lens of the pandemic with a subversive intervention at Arnold Circus, inviting the artists Gabriella Hirst, Sam Keogh and Rosa Johan Uddoh to activate this contested area within the gentrified Shoreditch neighbourhood; set within a neoliberal economy and its increasing degree of privatization and consequent displacement, the programme offers a post-pandemic horizon that opens a discussion around the importance of public space. Illuminations shakes up the dull monotony of the 2020 lockdown and the related socio-political issues with a series of live events, turning the calm roundabout back into a space of dissent.

The judging panel for the 2020 NEON Curatorial Award was chaired by Nayia Yiakoumaki, Project Manager of NEON Curatorial Exchange & Award until 2020 and included previous NEON Award winners Elina Axioti (2014), Caterina Avataneo (2017), Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk (2012), and Annika Thiems (2019).