Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star

Many thinkers and theorists have argued that modernity is defined by the rejection of magic. Spirits, fairies, and spells are the domain of children, and rationality is an essential virtue. However, magic has a key role to play in both the personal and broader sociopolitical worlds. Magic has many practical applications, for example, to help heal the rifts between humanity and nature, or to facilitate intergenerational connection and play. Crossing thresholds into places of wonder can be profoundly grounding, connecting us to place, people, and culture. These thresholds to magical realms can be found everywhere, in nature, rituals, dreams, play. To make art is to conjure worlds.

This exhibition seeks to re-enchant. It holds the existence of other, invisible worlds, as truth, and their mystical inhabitants as living.

Featuring loaned and Permanent Collection work by artists including Bethany van Rijswijk, Terry Whidborne, Nanna Bayer, Lorraine Biggs, Wendy Bulmer, David Keeling, Milan Milojevic, Peter Sugden and others.

Title from Somewhere or Other by Christina Rosetti, 1859. Curated by Ellina Evans.