Derek Jarman Special: Modern Nature

After being diagnosed with HIV in 1986, the British writer, artist and avant-garde filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942–1994) bought a plot of land with a wooden cottage on the Kent coast. He painted the wooden walls jet black, left the bright yellow window frames untouched, and, in the shadow of the Dungeness nuclear power station, he began creating his dream garden: a sea of flowers amidst the pebbles surrounding the house, Prospect Cottage.

Not everything Jarman planted survived the fierce wind and the spray from the sea, but enough flourished nonetheless, and a garden of striking beauty emerged from the wasteland. In his diaries, Jarman documented his days in Dungeness. As his health continues to deteriorate, he describes how the garden he had longed for all his life is gradually coming into being. Reflections on the past decades intertwine with descriptions of the garden’s formation: his childhood in a conservative family, his time as a young gay man in 1960s London, and his unconventional career as an artist.

Today, Jarmans’ garden is a place of pilgrimage for garden and art lovers from all over the world. Modern Nature has been brought into Dutch by Das Mag and translators Henny Corver and Nico Groen: Moderne natuur, a beautiful, spirited diary about a garden on the fringes of existence. Also available: Smiling in Slow Motion (Glimlach in slow motion), Jarman’s last diary before his death in 1994. Written from Prospect Cottage, a cluttered London flat and, ultimately, his hospital bed – contrarian, spirited reflections on art, gardening and radical protest.

Jonny Bruce is a gardener and writer who has recently opened a plant nursery in the Cotswolds. With a degree in Art History, Jonny trained at Great Dixter in Sussex before spending four years in the Netherlands at the organic nursery De Hessenhof. He returned to the UK in 2020 to pursue his dream of setting up his own nursery while working alongside a range of designers. Since 2018 has also been responsible for the garden at Prospect Cottage, Derek Jarman's windswept home on the shingle at Dungeness. He writes regular articles for magazines and newspapers including the FT and Gardens Illustrated and has contributed to a number of books on gardens. Recently he finished his first book, "The Artist's Garden", which will be published in October 2026 by Tate. 

Bent Van Looy (1976) studied painting at St Lucas in Ghent. In 1998, he won Humo’s Rock Rally as a member of Das Pop, after which the band began touring across Europe and Japan. Back in Belgium, he worked in both radio and television and launched his own fashion label, ‘The Jante Law’. He continued to perform as a drummer with Soulwax and released his first solo album, Round the Bend, in 2013.

Bent has exhibited his paintings at S.M.A.K. in Ghent, BOZAR in Brussels, Gallery Sofie Van De Velde and Plus-One Gallery in Antwerp, as well as Super Dakota in Brussels. In 2021, he published Mijn Parijs, a personal guide to the city where he lived for ten years. Since autumn 2021, Bent has also performed with the VRT Big Band and presented the Radio 1 programme ‘Culture Club’. In 2022, he began presenting the Radio 1 programme ‘Voorproevers’ as well. In spring 2023, following the success of his Paris guide, Mijn Amsterdam was published. That same year, Bent’s Canvas programme Zingen is Goud went on air. In the music programme, Bent invited prominent Flemish figures to talk about their favourite songs and sing along to them.

In 2024, Das Pop announced their comeback. To mark the 25th anniversary of I Love, the band performed at AB and De Roma last year, followed by a busy summer of festivals. They returned to the stage in 2026, with a full schedule of concerts once again.

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer. They’re the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller, The Garden Against Time. They are a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. At Crossing Border they will talk about their latest novel The Silver Book.

About The Silver Book
It is September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini’s Casanova. A young – and beautiful – apprentice is just what he needs.

He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of Cinecittà, the studio where Casanova’s Venice will be ingeniously assembled. Then in the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Salò, Pasolini’s horrifying fable of fascism.

But Nicholas has a secret and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’, he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn’t intend . . .