ANA MENDIETA & MONICA SJÖÖ
INCLUDED IN ‘NATURAL MAGIC: WOMEN, ART, SPIRIT WORLDS’, TURNER CONTEMPORARY, MARGATE: OPENING 13 FEBRUARY 2027
13 February – 6 June 2027
Ana Mendieta, Árbol de la Vida (Tree of Life; Iowa) (detail), 1976-1977. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Alison Jacques. Photography: Michael Brzezinski.
Curated by internationally respected writer, critic, and curator, Jennifer Higgie — former Editor of Frieze — in collaboration with Melissa Blanchflower, Senior Curator at Turner Contemporary, the exhibition will expand on Higgie’s acclaimed book, The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World.
Inspired by Turner Contemporary’s location at the threshold of land and sea, Natural Magic: Women, Art, Spirit Worlds explores the intersection of spiritual enquiry and the natural world; the mythic power of nature, the urgency of protecting the earth, oceans and air, and the transformative energy of spring, a season of renewal that resonates with the exhibition.
The exhibition will bring historic pioneers into dialogue with contemporary artists working across global contexts. Spanning drawing, painting, sculpture, film and installation, the exhibition features more than 30 artists whose practices explore spiritual cosmologies, material transformation, environmental fragility and embodied ways of knowing. Artworks will evoke mythic landscapes, the symbolic and healing potential of plants, the potent relationship between humans and animals and the power of ancestral knowledge. Historical highlights include works by Georgiana Houghton, Anna Mary Howitt Watts, Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun and Emily Kam Kngwarray, alongside contemporary artists including Tamara Henderson, Donna Huddleston, Kira Freije and Anna Higgins.
Natural Magic: Women, Art, Spirit Worlds will offer a timely reappraisal of art histories that have traditionally marginalised practices associated with intuition, mysticism and non-rational ways of knowing. The exhibition is the third in Turner Contemporary’s series of research-led thematic exhibitions, following Dr Flavia Frigeri’s Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950–1970 (2024) and Steve McQueen’s Resistance: How Protest Shaped Britain and Photography Shaped Protest (2025).