Prospects of a future: new visions of Derek Jarman

• Moyra Davey, Notes on Blue, 2015. 28 minutes
• Luke Fowler, Being Blue, 2024. 17 minutes
• Sarah Wood, Prospect, 2025. 13 minutes [Scottish premiere]

Followed by a Q&A with Sarah Wood

This film screening brings together three films by leading contemporary artists, each of whom has responded to the artistic and political legacy of Derek Jarman (1942-1994) in their own work.

Moyra Davey’s Notes on Blue sets the artist’s immersion in Jarman’s work into a range of other personal, artistic and political contexts. Davey’s own partial blindness due to Multiple Sclerosis provides a point of connection to Jarman, whose renowned film Blue (1993) was made as AIDS-related illness deprived him of his sight. The film’s expansive frame of reference extends from Jarman to take in poet Anne Sexton, writer Jorge Luis Borges, filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and musician PJ Harvey. Notes on Blue was commissioned by the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis.

Luke Fowler’s Being Blue was commissioned for the exhibition ‘Digging in Another Time’ at The Hunterian in 2024. Filmed on location at Prospect Cottage, Jarman’s former home in Dungeness, Being Blue incorporates newly-discovered audio recordings featuring Jarman discussing plans for his film The Garden (1990) and his views on queer sexuality. Its soundtrack includes readings by Neil Bartlett, field recordings by Fowler, and music by Jarman’s frequent collaborator Simon Fisher Turner as well as by Oliver Coates, Alexander Tucker & Keith Collins.

Sarah Wood’s essay-film Prospect was composed using never-before-seen footage shot by Derek Jarman and his collaborators at Prospect Cottage and the surrounding landscape. The footage was shot in preparation for The Garden(1990), and while some was used in the final film, much of it remained unseen. Wood’s editing of the footage, along with her poetic narration, poses the question of how Jarman’s radical vision speaks to our contemporary world: 'Watching these rushes now. The opposite of archive, of fixed memory. These once discarded glimpses of vision push back into the world with a force we need. New thoughts arise from darkness. It’s nourishing.'

Commissioned for The Hunterian collection, Prospect is shown here for the first time in Scotland.

This special screening accompanies , commission by The Hunterian in response to the exhibition Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature.

Accessibility

Information on Kelvin Hall accessibility can be found here.

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Host or Publisher School of Culture and Creative Arts