Modern Nature: An Homage to Derek Jarman, Part Four

With Julia Hanadi Al-Abed, Élie Autin, Sophie Conus, Domingo Collective, Marc Eicher, Mathias Howald, Tarek Lakhrissi, Cy Lecerf Maulpoix, audrey liebot and Tara Ulmann.

Since 2019, La Becque has been holding public events, open to all, dedicated to filmmaker, activist, and writer Derek Jarman. Entitled Modern Nature and thought up at the initiative of Elise Lammer, the program borrows its name from one of the English artist’s diaries, which largely focuses on his garden in Dungeness on the coast of Kent, England. Developed towards the end of his life, this lush, flowery haven, despite its inhospitable environment, would become his last total work, and later a place of pilgrimage for increasingly diverse artistic communities.

For its Modern Nature project, La Becque has drawn inspiration from the work of Jarman, developing a botanical tribute to Dungeness in the heart of its own gardens on the shores of Lake Geneva. Each year, La Becque invites both internationally renowned, established artists and up-and-coming Swiss creators to come and tackle this “place within a place” and Jarman’s artistic legacy, turning this natural setting into a driving force for artistic exploration and experimentation.

After three iterations of Modern Nature dedicated to the themes of “Camp”, “Queer Nature”, and the AIDS crisis, La Becque is hosting a fourth event on July 7–8, which will focus on the garden as sanctuary.

In 1989, shortly after being diagnosed with HIV, Jarman left the hustle and bustle of London for a more peaceful life on the shores of Kent. He settled in an old fisherman’s hut, between an old lighthouse and a nuclear power station, at Dungeness. On the barren coastline, the black silhouette of the cottage stood out with its yellow windows and a garden with a path through a desert of pebbles splashed with red and yellow poppies. It is in this barren landscape that Prospect Garden was born, an extraordinary testament to Jarman’s creativity, whose zest for life was nevertheless overshadowed by the loss of loved ones to AIDS.

Imagining his garden at Dungeness as a place of escape, which he created and maintained in the face of his own impending mortality, and a canvas of creation amid all the destruction, Jarman sought to preserve notions of immortality. Seeing the flints that line the garden “like dragons’ teeth,” we might understand Prospect Cottage as an interpretation of the Garden of the Hesperides, where the immortals are those presences that Jarman has endeavored to preserve when all else would have it disappear—a garden that is both memory and memorial, planted in the irrepressible life of the soil, with its shoots, buds, and flowers.

Thus, for this new iteration of Modern Nature, curated by Vanessa Cimorelli, La Becque invites us to consider the garden as a place of deep roots, of presences—past and future—which also feed off an abundant energy source that enables them to resist and survive. It is with this promise of tenderness for life that the ten artists invited at Modern Nature this year will unveil their projects. Featuring a varied panorama of original artistic practices, including performances, round tables, concerts, and installations, the entire event will take place in La Becque’s thriving garden, offering an opportunity for proximity and encounters. By infusing their work with their own vulnerability, the artists invite us to join them in what could be described as moments of care, and open up the discussion on questions of sharing, reminding us how essential they are to artistic reflection and social changes, and thus enhancing Derek Jarman’s legacy.

Full program available on La Becque’s website.

Modern Nature: An Homage to Derek Jarman, Part Four is supported by the Loterie Romande and the Service of Cultural Affairs of the City of La Tour-de-Peilz.