Derek Jarman’s Blue and Prospect Cottage Garden

“Strident purple in the yellow broom, they stand exposed to wind and blistering sunshine, as rigid as guardsmen on parade.”

Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993) is an exploration of life, death, and identity, crafted during a period of declining health. Released a year before his passing, Blue remains one of the most poetic, experimental films of its era, presenting only a static blue screen paired with a layered soundscape and Jarman’s narration on illness, love, and queerness. To fully grasp Blue, one must also consider Jarman’s wider body of work, and I’d like to point attention to his celebrated garden at Prospect Cottage. Both the film and the garden are inextricably linked to his queer identity, with blue becoming a symbol of marginalisation, suffering, beauty, and resistance. A key theme in Jarman’s work is the creation of a personal eden—a concept he articulates in Modern Nature, reflecting his search for an alternative space.

Tilda Swinton in Jarman's The Last of England (1988) - Image via FILMSTARTS

In the early 1990s, Jarman became a well-known figure in the media as one of the first public figures in Britain to openly share his HIV status. This made him a powerful advocate against stigma. “I’ve always hated secrets,” he explained, “the canker that destroys.” Despite being furious at the prejudice, censorship, and lack of funding surrounding HIV, Jarman retained his wit, charm, and rebellious spirit, continuing to create art and a garden that flourished. Unsurprisingly, AIDS also amplified Jarman’s sense of an impending apocalypse. Confronted daily by the foreboding sight of the Dungeness B nuclear power station, which once appeared to erupt in a cloud of steam, Jarman was consumed with worries about global warming, the greenhouse effect, and the depletion of the ozone layer. He wondered if there was a future and whether the past was lost forever. His answer was to embrace the present: don’t waste time. Plant rosemary, lavender, santolina—turn fear into art.

Blue: Radical Cinema

Jarman’s Blue is a bold rejection of conventional cinema, where the absence of imagery becomes an act of defiance in itself. The film’s uninterrupted Yves Klein blue screen across its entire 79-minute runtime can be seen as a metaphor for queerness. It forces the audience to release traditional cinematic expectations and engage in a more intimate sensory experience, focusing on sound and Jarman’s poetic narration. In Jarman’s blue world, the colour blue is rich with meaning. Traditionally associated with melancholy, illness, and death—blue takes on these connotations as Jarman himself was suffering from AIDS-related blindness during the making of the film. At the same time though, blue represents the sky and the sea, evoking vastness, isolation, and infinity, echoing the feelings of marginalisation and the search for belonging. The use of blue, without any other imagery, reflects an erasure of the body, much like how identities have often been erased by society, and how HIV was censored during the epidemic. But blue is also peaceful, serene, and reflective, allowing an expression of acceptance.

As Blue unfolds, it becomes a space where queerness is both mourned and celebrated. The unchanging blue screen becomes a canvas for reflections on failing health, yet it resists becoming purely tragic. His narration speaks to love, memory, desire, and the resilience of the human spirit. In this way, Blue mirrors the queer experience of being both visible and invisible, both defined and undefined.

The Garden at Prospect Cottage

“My purple iris has died.”

In his diary Modern Nature, Jarman began writing on January 1, 1989, by describing his new home, Prospect Cottage, a small fisherman’s house on the Dungeness coast that he purchased impulsively for £32,000, using his father’s inheritance. At first, the location seemed unwelcoming for a gardener, as the harsh microclimate, strong winds, and salt-heavy air made it difficult for most plants to survive. Yet in this barren landscape, under the looming shadow of a nuclear power station, Jarman set about transforming the area into a unique sanctuary. As with all his work, the project was carried out on a small budget and by hand. He dug into the shingle, fertilised the ground, and coaxed roses and fig trees to flourish—just as he charmed actors and collaborators into creating art.

Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage compliments Blue in its subtle but rebellious exploration of queerness. The garden became a personal refuge, created as his health declined, where he could confront the fleeting nature of life and find beauty amid decay. Unlike the traditional, orderly English garden, Jarman embraced wildness, resilience, and minimalism. The garden, thriving in a harsh, inhospitable environment, symbolises how queer individuals often flourish in spaces of adversity. Like the blue screen in Blue, the garden represents a form of imposed order over chaos, but without a desire for total control. It is scattered with driftwood, stones, and found objects, embodying the DIY, punk ethos that defined Jarman’s artistic vision. In this way, the garden becomes a living testament to his resistance against societal forces that sought to erase queer lives and experience, transforming it into a celebration of beauty born from the margins.

His garden, with its hardy sea kale and vibrant yellow poppies, becomes a symbol of joy and resilience—a reminder that life and beauty can endure even in the most hostile environments.

“Red admirals, and tortoiseshells a bright mosaic. The wild hops are covered in pale green flowers. On the willows huge yellow and black caterpillars hang in downy bunches.” … “Everything is waiting for the rain.”

Derek Jarman at home, 1988 Photo by Brian Randle

Image Credit: Apollo Magazine

Blue as a Symbol

In Blue, the colour itself becomes a symbol. Traditionally linked to masculinity in Western culture, Jarman redefines blue, transforming it into something fluid and multifaceted. Blue is simultaneously a colour of life and death, hope and despair, presence and absence. It symbolises illness, the blue of bruised skin, veins, and the pallor of death. But blue also suggests transcendence—the sky representing freedom, the ocean, depth and mystery.

There is an inherent eroticism to blue, which Jarman weaves throughout his work. Blue is often associated with desire, as seen in the cool, blue tones of nighttime, frequently used in cinema to evoke longing. For Jarman, blue represents the space between intimacy and separation, touch and distance. As he reflects on lost lovers, blue becomes a metaphor for desire, persisting. In this way, the blue of Blue and of his garden stands as a radical act of love and remembrance.

The years in which Jarman created Blue and tended his garden were marked by fear and uncertainty. Despite his illness, Jarman remained blazing with creativity and defiance. He offered a vision of an alternative life—wild and unapologetic Blue and Prospect Cottage remain enduring symbols of queer art’s power to challenge, mourn, and celebrate. Both spaces—one of colour and sound, the other of nature. Through blue, Jarman created a universe of emotion and expression, reminding us that even in darkness, there is a profound light.

Images

https://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/252732/bilder/?cmediafile=21415649

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/aids-crisis-british-artists/