Rachel Rose ‘Wil-o-Wisp’

Wil-o-Wisp is the first of a trilogy of films in which artist Rachel Rose looks at the 17^th Century as a moment of major economic, environmental, social and spiritual change that deeply conditioned the present times. Set in rural England, the film imagines the life of mystic Elspeth Blake and her experiences as a mother, healer, and persecuted woman in this epoch of major transformation of natural and human landscapes. By exploring the language and imagery of fairytales, the artist rethinks the ways in which history is narrated, concepts are normalized and memory is built across time.

Filipa Ramos: When installed in space, Wil-o-Wisp is accompanied by a series of ovoid glass sculptures that stand between the viewers and the screen. What led you to include these mesmerizing presences, simultaneously solid and liquid, into the work? 


Rachel Rose: When I was working on Wil-o-Wisp I had been researching how optical devices from the time were used in and alongside magical rituals. Many lenses were made very simply—just glass containing water. Working with glass blower Andrew Hughes, we made similar lenses which are placed next to the projection, distorting and distilling aspects of the projected frame. Viewing a film is magic—light frequencies meet a surface to form an image that our brain knows how to absorb and read. I was trying to link this contemporary magic inherent in watching film, to an earlier form of optical magic.

FR: Some moments of Wil-o-Wisp seem to be inspired by the writing of philosopher Silvia Federici, in particular by her ideas on how the transformation of the Western relationship to nature was accompanied by a change in control of women’s bodies. What motivated your interest in this period of change and metamorphosis which she also analyzed?

RR: Absolutely, her book Caliban and the Witch, on the period and place was an inspiration, amongst others. I was curious about two things when I began the project. At the time, I was experiencing an unusual amount of coincidences, which are largely considered ‘random’ to us now, but looking back at 17^th Century England, coincidence was part of a larger worldview in which the largest and smallest events were linked and animated. The idea that there is an underlying structure, or principle, from which causality exists, felt true to me.

I was also thinking about the loss of common, public, shared space - so many developments of capitalism are rooted in it, an uprooting of communities living on previously common land, which then lead to massive deforestation and the beginnings of the agricultural and then industrial revolution... I wanted to further understand that moment and see how this perspective on causality was also linked to a perspective on land.

FR: The film includes moments that are projected onto another screen, a film within the film. What was your interest in creating this additional membrane/ window to another time?

RR: In the opening sequence, you see a camera move through a house, and a painting of a landscape projected beyond the house. In those uses of the rear projection screen, I was thinking about fantasy. It was a time in which people lived without electricity or extensive travel so you can imagine, no candlelight, no expansive understanding of geography. I tried to think about how people would have thought and felt then—they would have lived with such a heightened state of imagination and extravision, maybe this barren landscape was something else, at night, to them.