Turner Prize 2018: Everything you need to know about one of the world's biggest art prizes

Contemporary arts lovers, this is your time: the Turner Prize exhibition opens next week at Tate Britain, before the winner is announced in December.

If you don’t know your Turner from your David Zwirner, don’t worry – we’re here to give you the lowdown.

What is the Turner Prize?

It’s the biggest prize in contemporary art in the UK. Think the Baftas but in an art gallery. It’s awarded annually to an artist under fifty who is born, living or working in Britain and can be for an exhibition of their work anywhere in the world in the previous year.

What’s in it for the artists?

The winner gets £25,000 and the accolade of being the winner of one of the world’s best known visual arts prizes. The shortlisted artists each receive £5,000. The winner is announced in December.

How did it start?

It was established in 1984 by the Tate’s Patrons of New Art to celebrate the excellence of brilliant developing contemporary artists.

But who is Turner?

The Turner Prize is named after nineteenth-century artist JMW Turner. He was chosen for a number of reasons: because he wanted to establish a prize for young artists, because he was controversial in his own day, because his Bequest is housed at Tate Britain, and also because he is now seen as one of the greatest British artists.

So who is in the running this year?

Up for the prize this year are three artists and one multi-talented collective: Naeem Mohaiemen, Charlotte Prodger, Luke Willis Thompson and Forensic Architecture . Mohaiemen and Prodger both boast particularly diverse practices that encompass filmmaking, writing and more, with Mohaiemen reflecting on post-war radical politics and decolonisation, while Prodger focuses on language, time and queer identity. Thompson has been shortlisted for an exhibition at London's Chisenhale Gallery which featured US civil rights activist Diamond Reynolds, and Forensic Architecture - a collective of architects, lawyers and filmmakers looking to investigate human rights abuses - has been shortlisted for its show Counter Investigations at the ICA.

Who has won it in the past?

Turner Prize winners have gone on to become household names; Grayson Perry, Damien Hirst, Jeremy Deller and Gillian Wearing have all been awarded the Turner in the past. Being on the shortlist can often be enough to send an artist’s star rising too - Tracey Emin remains one of this country’s most prominent artists, after being shortlisted for My Bed in 1999 (she lost out to film director Steve McQueen ).

Sounds important. How do I see this for myself?

The exhibition returns to London this year after its 2017 sojourn to Hull, the city of culture for that year. The work of all four shortlisted artists is on display in the Tate Britain from September 26 to January 6 2019.

For more information, visit tate.org.uk