GOSSIP
2024
Pine, linseed oil, broom brush, nail brush, bread brush, scrubbing brush, horsehair brush
170 cm x 70 cm x 50 cm
The history of witch-hunts in in Europe reaches throughout the 15th-18th century, in which thousands of women were killed, under the rule of the patriarchal church. The etymology of the word gossip dates back to the Middle Ages, when the term simply meant ‘friendship’.
During the witch trials, relationships between women were demonized as socially dangerous to the alliance between man and woman, and the word took on a more derogatory meaning.
Gossip is an abstracted broom sculpted from wood. Attached to the broom, the curved lengths of wood move like antennae or tentacles out of an apple (a symbol of both wisdom and temptation), each end of which is made of bristles from various household cleaning utensils.
Here, the symbol of the broom simultaneously refers to reproductive feminized labor and the more threatening premonition of a witch’s broomstick.
