Susan MacWilliam (b. 1969, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is an internationally recognized artist whose work takes psychical research and its histories as a central subject. Working across video, sculpture, photography, installation and neon, MacWilliam draws on mediums, Spiritualism, telepathy, extrasensory perception and paranormal investigation—transforming this material into works that are visually engaging, intellectually curious and subtly playful.

Her subjects range from celebrated psychical researchers and mediums to séances, ghosts and the popular literature of the paranormal. Her work has engaged with figures including J. B. Rhine and Louisa E. Rhine, William G. Roll, Eileen Garrett, Helen Duncan and Camille Flammarion, connecting their research and histories with contemporary art. In her Book Spheres, vintage book covers devoted to psychical research, parapsychology, telepathy, ESP and Spiritualism are transformed into sculptural objects. Elsewhere, glowing neon questions such as Where Are the Dead? give the language of psychical research an unexpected contemporary presence, while her films bring historical figures, researchers and accounts of extraordinary phenomena into direct conversation with the present.

MacWilliam represented Northern Ireland at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 with her solo exhibition Remote Viewing. In 2020, CONNERSMITH presented a solo survey of her work at The Armory Show, New York. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums and institutions throughout Europe and North America. Her mid-career survey, Modern Experiments, toured the F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Highlanes Gallery, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and Butler Gallery in 2016–17. Recent exhibitions include Ghosts: Visualising the Supernatural at Kunstmuseum Basel and The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts at the University of Manitoba.

MacWilliam’s work is held in public and institutional collections including the UK Government Art Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Arts Council of Northern Ireland and British Library Sound Archive, as well as numerous private collections internationally. The UK Government Art Collection holds eleven works by MacWilliam, including AN ANSWER IS EXPECTED and ten sculptures from her Book Spheres series.

MacWilliam lives and works in Belfast, N Ireland and is represented by CONNERSMITH, Washington, DC.