Brit Awards winners will this year be presented with not one but two statuettes, with stars encouraged to share with someone important to them as an “act of kindness”.
Artists Es Devlin and Yinka Ilori have designed a trophy that comes in two parts, with Ilori saying he was inspired by experiences of goodwill during the COVID-19 lockdowns of the past year.
The Brits ceremony is due to take place on 11 May in front of an audience of 4,000 people, and will be the first major indoor and in-person live music event in more than a year as part of a government pilot scheme.
Winners will receive two trophies this year – an extra one to share with someone important
Award recipients will be given their double trophy – one larger, multicoloured statuette, as well as a smaller metallic version – and “encouraged to award the second smaller trophy on to someone else”, organisers have said.
Devlin and Ilori follow in the footsteps of previous Brits statuette designers including Tracey Emin, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Sir David Adjaye and Sir Anish Kapoor.
“Yinka and I thought the best award that one could receive would be agency to award another,” Devlin said.
“Each recipient is invited to award the second trophy to someone they consider worthy – it might be recognition – or it might be someone that does something entirely unrelated to music.”
Ilori said: “The idea came from the experience of lockdown, where your neighbour you’ve lived beside for six years and never say hello to suddenly gave you flowers, foods, acts of kindness. I wanted to capture that.
“I would describe it as two artists from different disciplines, different inspirations, coming together to design a trophy based around the idea of giving something back – acts of kindness.”
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Dua Lipa, Griff, Arlo Parks and Headie One are among the artists scheduled to perform during the ceremony, which will be hosted by Jack Whitehall.
Lipa, Parks, Celeste, rap duo Young T & Bugsey and DJ and producer Joel Corry are all up for three awards, while Jessie Ware, dance music duo Bicep and rappers AJ Tracey, J Hus and Headie One each have two nominations.
The ceremony will take place on 11 May at the O2 Arena in London, with some 2,500 of the spaces available for the show going to key workers in Greater London.