Elizabeth Price

Elizabeth Price is a British contemporary artist, born in 1966, whose work primarily focuses on video installations that delve into history, memory, and the intersections of technology and consumer culture. Before transitioning to video art, Price initially trained as a painter, earning her MFA at the Royal College of Art in London. Her background in painting is evident in her meticulous approach to composition and imagery in her videos, where she layers archival footage, digital graphics, text, and music to craft immersive, narrative-driven works.Price’s videos often explore institutional archives, societal histories, and forgotten narratives, weaving these elements into thought-provoking stories. She examines how objects and histories are categorized, archived, and interpreted. Her 2012 Turner Prize-winning work, The Woolworths Choir of 1979, is a striking example of this, combining archival footage, choral music, and a haunting recounting of a fire at a Woolworths department store in Manchester. The piece delves into the relationship between space, tragedy, and collective memory, highlighting Price’s ability to use visual and auditory elements to evoke emotional and intellectual engagement. In much of her work, Price plays with the idea of the archive as a space of both preservation and decay, often using dissonant music and rhythmic editing to challenge the viewer’s perceptions. Her 2015 piece K investigates the decommissioning of a government office and the archived histories it contains, presenting a speculative future where digital culture collides with human memory. By combining these elements, Price forces her audience to question the stability of historical records and how we assign value to objects and events in contemporary society. Throughout her career, Elizabeth Price has exhibited internationally in major institutions such as the Tate Britain, the Walker Art Center, and the Chicago Institute of Art. Her works are praised for their ability to fuse academic research with artistic expression, challenging the boundaries between fine art, documentary, and digital culture. Price’s intellectually rigorous, visually compelling installations continue to explore how historical and cultural narratives are constructed, manipulated, and preserved in the digital age.