One of the country’s top contemporary artists could be on her way to work in Croydon – and everybody in the borough can help to make it happen.

When it was announced that the opportunity of working with Gillian Wearing was the prize in this year’s Connect! Museums at Night competition, she chose the Museum of Croydon as one of her five favoured venues. Voting will decide at which she appears.

To bring the Turner Prize-winning artist to Croydon, as many people as possible have to cast their vote. Voting commences at 11am on Friday 1 May at www.museumsatnight.org.uk/gillian-wearing/

Designed to give museums the chance to build new audiences by working with leading artists, the competition will increase awareness of the Museum of Croydon’s new gallery, launched last year, which showcases works from the Croydon art collection.

If Croydon is selected to bring Ms Wearing to the museum, it will be a rare opportunity to have a top contemporary artist create a unique, participatory event in the heart of the borough – something that would not otherwise be possible.

And the additional boost of a £3,000 bursary will enable the staging of a truly ambitious and creative event.

Rob Shakespeare, museum and archives manager, said: “We’re delighted that Gillian Wearing has selected the Museum of Croydon as one of the venues she would like to work with.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to work with our audiences in innovative and challenging ways. If we’re successful, we’ll transform the museum gallery into a karaoke club for the night, complete with live musicians. Writers and lyricists will help audience members to write their own lyrics before entering the ‘club’ and performing.

“Anybody who’s as ambitious as we are for culture in Croydon, can help us by voting to bring Gillian Wearing to the Museum of Croydon for our event planned for Friday 30 October.”

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Who is Gillian Wearing?

Born in Birmingham in 1963, British artist Gillian Wearing investigates the tensions between public and private, fiction and reality, and the relationship between the artist and the viewer.

Her performative photographs and films explore personal revelations, private fantasies, and psychological trauma. Drawing on theatrical techniques, fly-on-the-wall documentaries, and reality TV, her work explores public personas and private lives in an investigation of the way in which we present ourselves to the external world.

In 1997 Wearing was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize.