Derek Jarman, Painter: Activism, Archives and Ephemera

In April 2020, a high-profile and international appeal to prevent the private sale of Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage reached its crowdfunding target of £3.5 million after only 10 weeks. The viral success of this campaign raises many questions regarding the active legacies of not only the artist and the archive, but of the AIDS epidemic itself. What makes an archive “queer”? What is included and excluded—remembered or forgotten—and how? With a focus on Jarman’s painting and the recent retrospective at Le Crédac, this presentation considers the complications that arise amidst this moment of Jarmania.

Will Ballantyne-Reid is a writer and curator, currently completing a LAHP-funded PhD at UCL on Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage archive. He is a regular contributor to i-D, and has previously worked with Cromwell Place, House of Voltaire, Christie’s, Harlesden High Street, Block336, the Royal Academy of Arts, and SHOWstudio.