A British man crumpled a beer can and called it art. For that, he won a turnip
Posted on: Dec 04, 2025 04:37 IST | Posted by: Cbc
Tim Flooks was thrilled and vindicated when, after years of trying, he eventually took place the sought after brassica rapa value — a fresh turnip stuck to an old block of wood with a rusty nail.
The Turnip Prize is a parody of the Turner Prize, a highly prestigious British award for visual artists.
Run annually by The New Inn in Wedmore, England, the satirical contest’s goal is to create a piece of art using as little effort as possible. It's a cheeky nod to artist Tracey Emin's sculpture, My Bed, a literal unmade bed that was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize and later sold at auction for £2,546,500 ($4.7 million Cdn).
Flooks submitted a crumpled beer can as his winning piece this year, under his “artist” name, Ali Can, Ali being short for Aluminium. But he admits the piece wasn’t as low-effort as it appears.
“I'll be honest with you, twisting a can and still maintaining the sort of the look of the lettering on the front and everything was quite difficult. It took me about three goes,” Flooks, 69, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“So, yeah, a little bit of effort. I am kind of a little bit artistic in some ways. I like things to look right, you know?”
The Turnip Prize is in its 27th year, but Flooks first heard of it four years ago when he moved to Wedmore in Somerset county and started noticing blue plaques on people’s houses boasting: “The Turnip Prize Lives Here,” each embossed with a different year.
“I was like, I want one of those,” he said. “I've been trying ever since.”
Last year, he came close. His timely piece Yew Crane — a model crane with a sprig from a yew tree — made the shortlist.
“I didn't win, so I thought I was robbed. I was thinking, 'what am I gonna do?' And I was thinking, 'well, I'm still a bit bitter about this,'” Flooks said.
So he decided to crush a can of Moor’s Bitter beer and call it Bitter n Twisted.
While the Turner Prize winner gets £25,000, the Turnip Prize is decidedly less valuable — a turnip nailed to a chunk of wood, which Flooks says is a “lovely piece of oak” that has served as the trophy’s base for decades.
“The turnip just gets taken off and a fresh turnip gets put on. And that'll be my job next year. I'll have to get the fresh turnip and put it on there to present to next year's winner,” he said.
But the real prize, he says, is the blue plaque declaring him a Turnip Prize winner. That he gets to keep forevermore, and Flooks says he’s already affixed it to his house with pride.
Interview with Tim Flooks produced by Chris Trowbridge
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