PhD student wins grand prize in modernist art competition
George Cloke, PhD candidate and CHASE Scholar at SOAS, has won the "Sound" award category of the 2025 Ivan Juritz Prize.
Entitled ‘Earth Is All Melody’, George’s creative soundscape brought together field recordings, interviews and blends of music. As a PhD candidate, George’s academic research focuses on the practice of ecological awareness in Southeast Asian moving image.
Accompanied by Korean sign language, the soundscape is a celebration of community and connections – with wider inspiration coming from conversations between George and environmental activists, disability rights campaigners, sci-fi writers and urban architects.
Through speculative sound design, Earth Is All Melody considers new ways of contemplating sustainability, compassion and kinship in present and future temporalities.
As a prize, George will receive £1,000 and a two-week artist residency, including travel expenses, at Mahler & LeWitt Studios. On winning the award, he said:
"Through speculative sound design, Earth Is All Melody considers new ways of contemplating sustainability, compassion and kinship in present and future temporalities, concurring with author David Mitchell’s suggestion that 'if a world is dreamable, maybe it can be dreamed into being'.
“I’m sincerely grateful to the Ivan Juritz Prize team for this award, to my brilliant and inspiring project collaborators, and to SOAS and CHASE for allowing and encouraging me to envision this artwork alongside my PhD research."
Rachel Harrison, Professor of Thai Cultural Studies and Head of the Doctoral School added:
"By winning the Ivan Juritz prize, George has demonstrated how important it is for PhD students to have internships as part of their research programmes.
His success is a testament to the academic opportunities afforded by the SOAS Doctoral School, and by the CHASE scholarship funding he has received from the AHRC. We are tremendously proud of him."
The Ivan Juritz Prize was established in 2014, inviting Postgraduate students from across Europe to take part. Submissions vary from texts, films, musical compositions, to virtual documentation of artwork, excerpts of moving image work and proposals for installation, and performance.
The SOAS Doctoral School aims to provide all postgraduate research students with the best PhD experience, with an expansive research community that develops effective, well-run, and responsive training programmes to support PhD students on their academic journey.
