in 2012 I visited Prospect Cottage. Eights years later in May 2020 I completed a print that depicts this wonderful landscape . https://alejez.com/product/dungeness-derek-jarmans-prospect-cottage/

Manchester Art Gallery Health and Welbeing manager Louise Thompson explains what mindfulness is.

Image
Walter Richard Sickert, Dieppe: La Plage, c1885
© Manchester Art Gallery

What is mindfulness?

From April 2020, Manchester Art Gallery planned to host PROTEST!, a major retrospective of the work of one of the most influential figures in 20th century British culture, Derek Jarman. Unfortunately Covid19 had other ideas, and we were forced to temporarily postpone the show. During this period of lockdown, with the generous cooperation of partners including here, BBC Arts, we're sharing films, audio and texts related to the exhibition.

Originaly broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2019, Rupert Everett narrating Modern Nature will be available to listen to in full until September 2020.
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Modern Nature is Jarman’s chronicle of life in his remote cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness in the years after his HIV diagnosis. Facing an uncertain future, Jarman found solace in nature, growing all manner of plants. Some perished beneath wind and sea-spray while others flourished, creating brilliant, unexpected beauty in the wilderness.

Modern Nature is both a diary of the garden and a meditation by Jarman on his own life: his childhood, his time as a young gay man in the 1960s and his renowned career as an artist, writer and film-maker. It is at once a lament for a lost generation, an unabashed celebration of gay sexuality, and a devotion to all that is living.

Rupert Everett knew Jarman personally and features in the diaries. The programme was recorded on location at Prospect Cottage, Jarman's former home, at the very desk where much of Modern Nature was written and features a rich soundscape of the house and area where it was recorded alongside a soundtrack of music taken from works by Benjamin Britten.

Rupert Everett has performed in many prominent films including The Madness of King George (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Inspector Gadget (1999), The Next Best Thing (2000), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Stardust (2007), Wild Target (2010), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) and The Happy Prince which he wrote and directed (2018).

Written by Derek Jarman
Read by Rupert Everett
Produced, abridged and directed by Simon Richardson

Programme image: Derek Jarman outside Prospect Cottage in Dungeness courtesy of photographer Howard Sooley.

BBC R4, Book of the Week: Modern Nature

Manchester Art Gallery

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