UK arts: New student art competition and writing awards announced

Octopus Energy has launched a UK-wide art competition titled ‘Reinvention’ to coincide with this year’s Turner Prize. Aimed at students aged 5 to 25, the contest invites participants to use various media—excluding AI—to envision a greener future for communities and planetary systems. Prizes include cash for individual artists and schools, internships for three students, and the opportunity to have winning works displayed on large-scale advertising spaces across the UK.

Separately, the winners of the 2026 Creative Future Writers' Awards have been announced. As the UK’s national prize for under-represented writers, the awards distributed £25,000 in cash and development prizes among fifteen winners. The competition saw a 16% increase in submissions over the previous year, with winning works covering fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction that explore themes of disability, chronic illness, and lived experience.