Artists: Clodagh Emoe, Joachim Koester, Maria Loboda, Goshka Macuga, Susan MacWilliam, Deirdre McKenna, Stephen Rennicks

Curated by Emer McGarry

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats, The Model is delighted to present Psychic Lighthouse, an exhibition that takes his interest in the practice of magic and the quest for enlightenment as it’s point of departure. Psychic Lighthouse features the work of a number of Irish and international contemporary artists, who investigate ritual, spiritualism and occult practices – to question the boundary between the metaphysical and material worlds. As a poet Yeats used charged talismanic symbols and images, evocative rhythm and repetition to induce a magical affect that aimed to penetrate his readers’ subconscious. The work of the six contemporary artists presented in Psychic Lighthouse points to a space beyond the physical world. A place where alternative realities that cannot be pinned down by empirical means or chronological time exist; where both past and future occur in a circular fashion; and where the voices of the dead are part of human conversations. Psychic Lighthouse asks the viewer to consider what role enchantment plays in our lives and why humankind has an unshakeable desire to believe in what has been described as ‘the third way’.

Emer McGarry will lead a curator’s tour of the exhibition and a discussion on Yeats’ interest in the occult on Wednesday 29 July at 4pm.