The Artes Mundi award has made an unusual and frankly unexcepted announcement. The organizers of the internationally-focused Welsh visual arts prize stunned the audience waiting eagerly to know the 2021 winner of the foremost Artes Mundi 9 prize when they announced that all six nominees are joint winners.

This means that each of Firelei Báez, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Meiro Koizumi, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Prabhakar Pachpute, and Carrie Mae Weems will share the prize money which was increased from £40,000 to £60,000 this year - thanks to money saved by the organization this year due to the pandemic that meant they did not need to spend on artist’s accommodation and transport.

In a statement explaining their decision, the jury, consisting of the Para Site executive director Cosmin Costinas, the Showroom director Elvira Dyangani-Ose, and the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Rachel Kent, said it awarded the prize to all six artists “in recognition of both the context in which their work is produced; and importantly, in recognition of each individual practice which is outstanding in merit, made especially, and powerfully relevant today.”

Artes Mundi director Nigel Prince who chaired the jury disclosed that the context of making work and putting a show together during a global pandemic played an important part in the jury’s deliberations as did “the very nature of the work and especially the fact that so much new work has been made by the artists for the exhibition”.

This turn of events implies that the six artists will get £10,000 each, and for Prince, there is “unanimous delight in the fact that the prize is shared between them,” as it “feels very much [in keeping with] the spirit of the time.”

Works by all the winning artists are currently on show at the National Museum Cardiff and the Chapter Arts Centre (until 5 September). The pandemic not only delayed the exhibition and the prize-giving but may have also affected the final appearance of some of the artists’ works. For example, Dineo Seshee Bopape and Prabhakar Pachpute ordinarily complete their pieces in situ but had to send instructions instead and—like many of the artists—guide the installation of the show through video calls, Prince says.

This announcement follows the pattern of collective prize-sharing among the UK’s most famous contemporary art awards. In 2019, the Turner Prize was shared amongst the four nominees, and in 2020, the award was canceled and replaced by ten £10,000 bursaries for artists. For 2021, the award’s shortlist is made up of artist collectives. Similarly, the most recent Museum of the Year prize was awarded to the five nominated institutions.