GRIZEDALE Arts artist, Laure Prouvost has won the prestigious 2013 Turner Prize with a project produced with the South Lakeland arts organisation.

The piece, which comprises a film and object made in and around Coniston, was commissioned as part of a Kurt Schwitters exhibition at Tate Britain earlier this year.

Prouvost was intrigued by the artist’s patner, Edith Thomas, nicknamed Wantee because of her habit of asking ‘want tea?’ From that starting point, Prouvost spun a fictional story about her grandfather – apparently a close friend of Schwitters and also a conceptual artist.

She worked over a period of months in Coniston, involving local artist such as Peter Hodgson of Ambleside and Coniston Youth Club who helped to build the set for the film.

At the ceremony last night in Londonderry, Provost said: "I'm not ready, I didn't expect it at all.”

"Four incredible artists here with me and the show. I thought 'It can't be me,' - I was sure it was not me. So thank you everybody.”

Alistair Hudson, deputy director, Grizedale Arts said: “We are pleased Laure has won the Turner Prize with the project.

“In many ways she was an outside bet, but in the end it seems the jury were won over by this strange, moving and funny and accessible piece of storytelling.”

The work from Laure’s Turner Prize show will have a ‘homecoming’ exhibition in Coniston, with a performance by Laure and the Youth Club opening on January 24 in the Ruskin Museum, Coniston.