Gossip: Magic and Marginalisation

Guided by guest curator Marjolein van der Loo, Kasteel Wijlre estate brings together contemporary art and regional history in a layered group exhibition exploring exclusion, connectedness and imagination. Taking South Limburg as its point of departure, the exhibition examines how historical processes of marginalisation – such as the witch persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – continue to resonate in the present day.

At its core are the often-overlooked voices of women who held knowledge of care, the healing properties of nature and forms of community-building. Their stories are only fragmentarily recorded in traditional historiography, yet they persist through rituals, language and shared practices. Gossip takes this silence as its starting point, revaluing the concept as a form of solidarity, exchange and collective knowledge.

The title refers to a historical practice of female connectedness and knowledge-sharing. Originally, the term ‘gossip’ denoted relationships of kinship and care between women. Within the exhibition, gossip is employed as a method: a way of gathering, exchanging and transmitting. This approach is extended through a public programme featuring shared meals, workshops, rituals and conversations.

The exhibition approaches magic not as superstition, but as a form of intention, connection and creation, closely aligned with artistic practice. At the same time, it reveals how marginalisation persists as a recurring mechanism, targeting those who are perceived as ‘other’ or ‘uncontrollable’.

In close dialogue with the natural surroundings of the estate, Gossip brings together work by local and (inter)national artists: melanie bonajo, Leonie Brandner & Nina Guo, Mounir Eddib, Natasja Kensmil, Shani Leseman, Dakota Magdalena Mokhammad, Project Wilgenvrouwen (beatrice pittman & Pleun Moons), Lara Schnitger, Luca Soudant and herman de vries.

Things considered valuable are often given a place where they can be stored, cared for and preserved. This applies to ingredients and their associated memories, knowledge and meanings. Taking his mother’s medicine cabinet as a starting point, Mounir Eddib creates his own, bringing together stories, objects, ingredients and ritual materials connected to forms of healing and protection. Rooted in his Limburg and Moroccan background and his interest in Amazigh and Sahrawi traditions, his work explores how knowledge of materials such as lead and tar, as well as healing and unseen forces, is passed down and continues to evolve within contemporary European contexts and his artistic practice. Such practices are often interwoven with local traditions and Islamic cosmologies, occupying a space shaped by tensions surrounding gender, religion, magic and authority. The work raises questions about the marginalisation of domestic and non-institutional forms of knowledge, including those shaped by migration.

Photography by Peter Cox