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The Turner Prize 2023 exhibition, held at Towner Eastbourne, may be the first edition in a few years taking place when things, at least pandemic-wise, feel ‘back to normal’. However, as the range of works by the four artists nominated for this year’s Turner Prize demonstrate, ‘normal’ can feel just as disorienting as the upheaval that preceded it. The artists each exhibit works that explore different facets of this uneasy normal – political, social, economic – through a range of media including installation, drawing, sculpture and film. However, the throughline connecting this range of practices is the idea of community. For Ghislaine Leung and Rory Pilgrim, community can facilitate support and empathy. Jesse Darling and Barbara Walker explore its rough, blemished side, which, especially when considered in a nationalistic sense, can be alienating and destructive. Another throughline in the artists’ works is their response to the effects of recent or ongoing experiences. Pilgrim and Leung take a more personal route, focusing on how community influences the individual experiences of the pandemic and motherhood, respectively. Darling, whose work considers the aftermath of Brexit, and Walker who examines the Windrush scandal, contemplate how national policies can damage the communities they are meant to serve.