Magic Mirror on the Wall by Moniek Schrijer, Julia Boix-Vives and Lars Joosten

Artist list

Julia Boix-Vives, Lars Joosten, Moniek Schrijer

The exhibition emerged from the international residency programme that DIVA has been organising since 2021. Each year, the museum invites three artists to work in the DIVA atelier for a period of three months. From 1 September to 30 November 2025, Moniek Schrijer, Julia Boix-Vives and Lars Joosten developed new work, resulting in Magic Mirror on the Wall.

The title is borrowed from the well-known fairy tale Snow White. In the original version by the Brothers Grimm, the line reads Magic mirror on the wall, although Mirror, mirror… later became more familiar through translations and Disney. The exhibition does not centre on the fairy tale itself, but on one figure within it: the magic mirror. While Snow White remains a strikingly passive character, it is the mirror that truly acts. It speaks the truth, regardless of power, desire or expectation. In an age of fake news, mediated images and echo chambers, this is an unexpectedly timely and radical figure.

Like a mirror, jewellery exists at the intersection of body and image, intimacy and public representation. In Magic Mirror on the Wall, jewellery functions as a medium that does not affirm, but questions: what do we see, why do we attach value to what appears, and who decides what is valuable?
Each of the three artists gives shape to these questions in their own way. Moniek Schrijer strips the diamond of its self-evident status and reflects on how value is assigned. Julia Boix-Vives turns the mirror towards the body and its rituals, making visible how identity and gender are formed. Lars Joosten reverses the mirror and reveals the mechanisms that structure connection and behaviour.

Together, these artists create a space in which jewellery does not seduce, but invites us to look. Like the magic mirror, it offers no comfortable truth, but a sharp reflection on what they hope or believe to see.


Opening hours: Daily from 10.00 - 18.00. The last entry is at 17.30.
Closed on Wednesdays.