1967-

Twins Jane and Louise Wilson were born in 1967 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. While they studied at different colleges, for their concurrent BA degree shows, they showed identical bodies of work, and from that point on they have continued to collaborate on photographs and videos. They both attended Goldsmiths College in London, receiving MA degrees in 1992.

The series “Atomgrad, Nature Abhors a Vacuum” (2010–12) shows scenes of Pripyat, in present-day Ukraine, a Soviet city built in the late 1970s to house the workers at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear facility. The city was evacuated two days after the explosion of the power plant in 1986 and has stood abandoned since. The Wilsons’ photographs, which focus on public buildings (schools, hospitals, and amphitheaters), convey a manmade landscape in the process of being gloriously reclaimed by nature, windows broken, floorboards strewn about, everything rusted, dusty—and highly photogenic.

The Wilson sisters have had exhibitions at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (1997), Kunsthalle Hamburg (1999), the Tate in London (2000), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2002), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), and Bergen Art Museum in Norway (2005), among other venues. In 2005, the Wilsons were invited by the Royal Opera House in London to design sets for their production of Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden. They have also exhibited widely in international group shows, including the Carnegie International (1999), Korean Biennial (2000), Istanbul Biennial (2001), Moving Pictures at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2003), Remind at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2003), and Out of Time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2006). In 1999, they were shortlisted for the Turner Prize. They live and work in London.