Jane and Louise Wilson, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, in 1967, have been collaborating as a duo since their student days in the late 1980s. Identical twins, they have used their connection as a means of exploring duality and the notion of selfhood amid complex geopolitical contexts. Primarily working in video installation, photography and sound, they have accessed loaded and atmospheric sites, from abandoned military sites to borderlands, and used diverse cultural phenomena, including specific works of art, literature and cinema, to reflect on the environments we occupy and the ways in which they are constructed physically and in terms of political and social meaning.
UNDEAD SUN, 2014. Installation view, MIMA, 2016
Courtesy of Jane and Louise Wilson
They discuss the pronounced sense of mirroring in their work, the origins of their official partnership in art, shaped by their upbringing, and the enduring relationship between photography and film in their practice. They recall the early impact of John Martin’s work, and how Cindy Sherman proved a hugely significant inspiration in their student days. They discuss artists as diverse as Victor Pasmore, Rita Donagh, Carrie Mae Weems and Nam June Paik, and reflect on the enduring influence of filmmakers from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Jean Cocteau and Stanley Kubrick. Plus, they give insight into their life in the studio and answer our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
Performance of Entrapment, London Mithraeum, Bloomberg SPACE
Jason Alden
- Jane and Louise Wilson: Performance of Entrapment, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, until 10 January 2026
- Dendrophiles, Leadenhall Building, Sculpture in the City, London, until spring 2026
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, the guide to which has a dedicated feature on Jane and Louise Wilson’s current exhibition there, including audio of Jane and Louise discussing various aspects of the work, Performance of Entrapment. You will also find a number of museums across the US that have shown and collected the Wilsons’ work, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or Lacma. In the Lacma guide, you can take a virtual tour of the museum’s new David Geffen Galleries, designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, before they open in 2026. Videos feature curators, conservators and artists discussing 14 works from Lacma’s collection in the empty spaces in which they will soon be installed.