Hedge House, Wijlre, Netherlands
30 August 2026 — 28 February 2027
Group exhibition
With Gossip: Magic and Marginalization, outdoor estate Kasteel Wijlre brings together contemporary art and regional history in a layered exhibition exploring exclusion, connection, and imagination. Taking South Limburg as its starting point, the exhibition examines how historical processes of marginalization—such as the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries—continue to resonate in the present.
At its core, the exhibition centers on the often-forgotten voices of women who held knowledge about care, the healing power of nature, and community-building. Their stories are only fragmentarily recorded in traditional historiography, yet they endure in rituals, language, and shared practices. Gossip takes this silence as a point of departure and revalues the concept as a form of solidarity, exchange, and collective knowledge. The exhibition will feature work by Natasja Kensmil.
The title refers to a historical practice of female connection and knowledge-sharing. Originally, the term gossip denoted kinship and care relationships among women. In the exhibition, gossip is employed as a method: a way of gathering, exchanging, and passing on. This approach is extended through a public program featuring communal meals, workshops, rituals, and conversations.
The exhibition approaches magic not as superstition, but as a form of intention, connection, and creation, closely related to artistic practice. At the same time, it reveals how marginalization as a mechanism continues to recur, targeting groups perceived as “other” or “uncontrollable.”
For more information, visit the Kasteel Wijlre estate website.