Seeding Queer Futures: Residency at Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage

With some time away from gardening and designing in the bustle of the city, I am also here to find some personal healing as a queer person. Jarman understood how the personal is so political, using his queer experiences as central to his art practice, embodying it in all the paintings, set designs, films, writings, sculptures, and garden. In an old fisherman’s cottage lovingly tended against the harsh exposed landscape I take the time to nestle in.  I am reading, I am breathing, I am watching the fennel shimmer in all its bisexual glory under the warmth of the sun, and the gulls cry (known for their lesbian partnerships), and the constantly trans-forming flow of the waves crash across the shore. I am wondering what it is like to feel a bit more at home in this fluid body as I watch the sun dip their face beneath the marsh.

The mornings begin as a pink dot against a dark restless sea, now caught alight. Its rays shimmer across the ocean to me with my morning cup of tea. Its body meeting mine. The cool wind blasts without obstacle and I am wrapped tightly in one of Jarman’s old blankets, softening it all. Here out in the elements, all our bodies meet. For so long we have had to separate our bodies, queer bodies have been cruelly separated by the state, by Aids, by the societies which refuse to recognise them. Our bodies, too cramped up in small flats in the city and work have been separated from the land which nurtures us. I would be lying if I said I found it easy to melt my body into this place and landscape, for although the distinction between the sky, shingle and sea fizzle in dazzling light, obstacles of grief, of isolation, of despair, of self-doubt, of fear send borders, gates and blockages. As I walk often across the garden I realise I am surrounded by the spirits which Jarman has brought to protect his home.

Through his beachcombing walks he collected driftwood and hagstones, alongside found objects of curling metal and rods littered across the shingle. By bringing it back to the garden, he created sculptures alive with power to look after him, this land and his community. Hagstones are known for their protective powers, to let only the good things through. I didn’t expect to find any, but on one walk I find three. I hold one to the sky and let the light stream through to meet me. I let some of my own feelings flow through, a first step in letting go.  I find more signs of delight and comfort; Prospect’s daffodils huddle together in brave clumps, turning their backs against the wind and shine their faces towards the sun. Dressed in papery yellow and white dresses, their circle is a drag garland of attraction for the newly emerging queen bees, bathing in sunlight, before storing away resources when the times are more difficult.

For a long time in gardening we treated plants as separate individuals rather than understanding them as communities, working together. When Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd visited Jarman’s cottage, they were so impressed by plants flourishing among the shingle that it inspired Beth’s gravel garden. Plants growing in Jarman’s garden that are suited to the exposed, very dry climate, thrive; Helichrysums, Santolina, Cistus, Gorse, Sea Kale, Sea Poppies, Lavender, Sea Pea, Foxgloves, Fennel, Euphorbias, Vincas. Sheltering each other from the harsh winds, each addition of a plant enabled the better survival of another, until a rich community was made. In looking to queer practices, I have been researching how vital communities have been for queer survival in the face of extremely hostile environments. Derek had Keith Collins, his companion, and so many friends, collaborators and supporters who filled Prospect Cottage with care and joy. Plants themselves collaborate with the soil through their roots and help support each other by sharing resources, stabilising the ground, and offering shelter. Thinking about how we can design and make spaces as communities, both human and ecological, can help increase the chances of these city gardens surviving, as people and plants have been collectively invested in.

As spring moves in to caress the marsh, the plants slowly feel the courage to rise and flower. Bright yellow tulips stand like beacons, Hyacinths drop their bells, and wallflowers send out sweetness, with it comes the humming drum of insect life, and then bird life. Sparrows leap in a dance from kiss-laden gorse bushes drenched in yellow radiance across a cloudless sky. They skip and hop from the sparse vegetation across an endless desert. Time does not stand still, and this is a space which is constantly evolving and changing. When thinking about creating landscapes, we need to engage much deeper than community consultations and initial planting designs and invest in people and communities who will care for and garden these places. The very garden of Prospect started from a slow relationship with the landscape, an accidental creation through gathering of shoreline treasures; a staking of a dogrose with a driftwood staff topped with a beachcomed bone; lowtide flint which allowed a seedling of sea kale to establish. Over time the garden evolved to become a therapy and a pharmacopoeia for Jarman. As we look towards making spaces in our cities, it is clear that the very process of making a garden, rather than just being ready-made, brings so many important benefits and meanings to communities.

I wait patiently each day for a tulip to decide to open up and unfurl its buds. On my last day it reveals its sweet pink surprise, popping up so boldly and colourful against the flat land. These moments are so delightful and the garden looks so vibrant and flourishing because it’s been continually looked after since Jarman passed.  First by his companion Keith Collins, and now Jonny Bruce who gardens here monthly and runs biannual working weekends full of gardening, food and joy. This cottage and garden therefore lives on because of the work of Jarman, Collins, Bruce, and all that have contributed to its vitality and safeguarding through its purchase in 2020 by Art Fund, and appointing Creative Folkestone as its custodian. In my own life I’ve come to see the ways in which queer communities continue to rally around each other as difficult moments arise. There is constantly a need to advocate, to care for, to carve out space for queer bodies. Gardens too need gardeners who are valued and recognised for their work. As I wrote about my time on a Prospect Cottage working weekend, the garden is a collective tended space, full of the care and collaboration of so many hands.

Many thanks to Creative Folkestone for awarding me this residency and to its guardian Hamish Findlay for his warm hospitality.

To get more stories like this in your inbox every weekend, sign up to the Garden Museum newsletter: sign up