East London Art Prize 2025 Winner’s Exhibition: Laisul Hoque

Bow Arts is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Laisul Hoque, winner of the 2025 East London Art Prize.

Laisul Hoque is a London-based artist whose practice explores autotheory through an interdisciplinary approach. Drawing from memory and lived experience, he reflects on microhistories and their connections to larger global narratives.

Talking to Bow Arts about his upcoming exhibition he noted:

“As I look through my family’s photographs, I also notice how the settings and contexts of these images are shaped by national and international events, by the local and global politics of their time. I’m trying to understand my father and the world that shaped him. And in turn the world that shaped me as well”.

Laisul Hoque was the winner of the 2025 East London Art Prize. The winner of the prize presents the winner’s solo exhibition the following year. More on the East London Art Prize.

Hoque’s winning work, An Ode to All the Flavours (2024), is an interactive sculpture resembling an antique sodium-lit ‘Bangladeshi sweet shop’ display counter. Inspired by the artist’s earliest memory of his father sharing his favourite childhood snack, the sculpture holds spice-seasoned fried gram flour flakes and fried chickpea flour balls soaked in sugar syrup.

During the installation in the Nunnery Gallery in 2025, the snacks were replenished daily by Oitij-jo, a charity that celebrates the cultural heritage and diversity of the Bengali diaspora.

Read more about Hoque’s winning installation, his making process and his thoughts on his upcoming show in this conversation with Bow Arts for our 30th anniversary.

About Laisul Hoque

Laisul Hoque was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he studied BA English Literature at North South University before completing an MA in Contemporary Photography, Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins, UAL, London. Hoque was a finalist for the 2024 CIRCA Prize. Drawing from his memories and lived experiences, he creates image-based works and installations that explore and decode microhistories and their global impacts. His practice investigates communication, miscommunication, and adopts a reparative reading of the past.

Selected exhibitions / screenings include An Ode to All the Flavours, a day-long Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Group Screening in the International Program, EXPERIMENTA, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, screened at Piccadilly Lights screen, London, Limes Kurfürstendamm screen, Berlin, Essilor Luxottica screen in Cadorna Square, Milan, as part of CIRCA Prize 2024; An Ode to All the Flavours, Solo Exhibition, Kobi Nazrul Centre, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Solo Screening, Studio 6/6, Dhaka (2024); Shorts: Joyful Lands, Joyful Bodies, Chronic Youth Film Festival, Group Screening, Barbican Centre, London (2024); I Don’t Call Enough but I’m Here Now, Solo Exhibition, Oitij-jo, London (2024).

Please click here to visit Laisul Hoque’s website.

About the East London Art Prize

The East London Art Prize celebrates and promotes the incredible talent and diversity of art made in the cultural hive of east London. Proudly sponsored by Minerva and Prue MacLeod, the winner receives a cash prize of £15,000 and a solo exhibition at our Nunnery Gallery. The runner-up second prize is a year’s studio space with Bow Arts.

More than just a competition, the Prize is supported by organisations and institutions working within its catchment boroughs, including the British Council, Dulux, The Line, London College of Fashion, London Legacy Development Corporation, University College London, V&A East and Whitechapel Gallery. This creates a network that enables the Prize to uniquely support and open up opportunities for artists through an associated events programme, highlighting new connections, and providing resources.

The 2025 Prize judges are Louise Benson (Director of Digital, ArtReview Magazine), Phoebe Collings-James (Artist), Jonny Tanna (Director, Harlesden High Street) and Sam Wilkinson (Head of Public Art and Cultural Engagement, UCL).

Access information

The Nunnery Gallery and Cafe have step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system.

Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.

If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)

Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!)

Opening hours: Tues-Sun, 10am to 4pm

Address: Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ

Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.

Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.

Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.