For the first time, the Turner Prize – the prestigious award for British artists that propels debate over the state of contemporary art – has landed at Margate’s progressive Turner Contemporary gallery. 2019’s nominees, generally regarded as a strong cohort, include audiovisual artist Mr Lawrence Abu Hamdan, whose explorations of human rights abuses entail extensive research around “ear-witness” testimony. His fellow nominee, Ms Helen Cammock, the recipient of 2018’s Max Mara Arts Prize for Women, is presenting a film about the critical, overlooked roles of Northern Ireland’s women during the Troubles-era civil rights struggles. While DC: Semiramis – a mythologically and historically-inspired, transportive installation – makes up radical feminist artist Ms Tai Shani’s entry.

And then there’s Mr Oscar Murillo. By far the most well-known nominee, the prolific Colombian native was scooped up by the David Zwirner gallery in 2013. In the intervening years, the London-based artist has received plaudits for his impactful, interdisciplinary installations such as a functional Colombian chocolate factory, replete with employees at David Zwirner, New York in 2014 and mesmerising large scale paintings, such as those at his outstanding Manifestation show at the gallerist’s London space this summer.

Mr Murillo’s creations focus on the consequences of globalism and capitalism as well as his own heritage. He considers how lives are affected, in the moment and down the generations, by eddies and exchanges of money, goods, language and labour. He also pushes the possibilities of his materials, from canvases, torn, collaged and marked with studio debris, as well as paint and printed designs; to the fusion of food and clay, such as in the corn-laced “bread” sculptures, redolent of meagre sustenance that he baked in situ as part of his presentation at the 10th Berlin Bienniale. That particular effort, alongside exhibits at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and the chi K11 art museum in Shanghai led to his Turner nomination.

Two series featured at the latter two shows are continued at Turner Contemporary. The Institute of Reconciliation (2014–) is best described as unstretched black canvases that represent an ineffable collective mourning. Contrastingly, Collective Conscience (2015–) is here comprised of 23 life-size effigies seated on repurposed pews.

On the eve of the show’s opening, ever-industrious Mr Murillo is at work in his Tottenham studio, his collective of effigies having recently made it to Margate by train. Still, he took the time to discuss the concepts that informed his Turner Prize presentation.

“I’m showing an installation of works which have a physical intensity, in terms of material intelligence, and then, of equal importance are the conceptual and intellectual concerns of the practice, which have to do with something I’ve come to call ‘horizontality’,” declares Mr Murillo. “Specifically, I’m referring to the world and its diverse [fluctuations] of peaks and lows in relation to geographical, social, political and economic [circumstances]. I’m then using personal points of commentary. It’s about getting that balance right – not just using biography, but also [interpreting] that biography so that it will resonate with a broader public.”

“There’s a work in the show that creates social understanding without being too sensational, a painting by a British painter Mr John Watson Nicol, “Lochaber No More” (1883), which refers to the [forced] migration [following the Highland Clearances] of Scots to the US. And so, that immediately resonates with British people as it talks about the perils of this country throughout history [instead of] speculating on some contemporary devastation in Africa or elsewhere in the world. The painting contrasts with the papier-mâché effigies, which have been used in popular culture in Colombia for centuries. They have this kind of crude physicality and I see them as representative of the working class.”

“Margate is a place of difficulty in terms of economic turmoil and social disparity. Also, in a way, [it can be seen as] the frontier in relation to the North Sea as the frontline of political, social and geographical debate. The space in which I’m showing has this beautiful window that looks out to sea, and I’ve blocked the window, because I want to both acknowledge it and disregard it. And to create that tension, I made a massive slit in the centre. It’s really this portal into another world, and the curtain is what I like to call a blind spot.”

“Among the paintings at the back of the space on these black heavy curtains I’ve painted a motif that suggests energy, movement, and velocity. It references Monet and his waterlily paintings of the Impressionist period. He had cataracts when he was working on those paintings, and I’m trying to understand if he is looking at them and making a natural representation or whether it was all projected as a kind of memory? And so I then think of these same questions in relation to how we observe and experience society.”

“I’m creating this marriage between the social in relation to these crude effigies, our current moment, the past in relation to this painting from the 19th century, and Monet and painting and form. It’s the idea of society being completely blinded by the moment and not being aware of the violence of the moment, but preferring to exist in a kind of utopian delusional world, a kind of dreamscape.”

“And I think what infuses these works with a certain energy and power, maybe anger, is this sense of injustice. I feel allergic to injustice. When I see that, that’s when the work has a kind of punch. But it’s not necessarily pointed at any individual – it’s aimed at systems of injustice.”