Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain and chair of the prize’s jury, said in a telephone interview that the artists had decided they wanted to be jointly nominated back in May, shortly after meeting for the first time. On Tuesday morning, a letter to that effect was presented to the jury, he added.

“Each of us makes art about social and political issues and contexts we believe are of great importance and urgency,” the letter said. “The politics we deal with differ greatly, and for us it would feel problematic if they were pitted against each other, with the implication that one was more important, significant or more worthy of attention.”

The group said a collective prize would also be a strong statement “at this time of political crisis in Britain and much of the world, when there is already so much that divides and isolates people and communities.”

The jury “rapidly, unanimously” agreed to the artists’ request, Mr. Farquharson said, feeling it reflected their work. “Their art, like so much art, addresses politics, addresses ethical concerns so I think in each case the poetics and politics of their work is inseparable,” he said.

The group will share the prize fund of 40,000 pounds, around $52,000, a spokeswoman for the prize confirmed in an email. Past winners have included Damien Hirst and Steve McQueen, the director of the movies “12 Years a Slave” and “Widows.”

More recent winners — such as last year’s, Charlotte Prodger, an artist who shoots films on her iPhone — have been less illustrious, but the prize has maintained its status as the major talking point of Britain’s art world — or at least a chance for its newspaper critics to complain about the state of that art world.