MODERN NATURE
AN HOMAGE TO DEREK JARMAN (PART 5)
05.07.2024
With Bruta & Sandar Tun Tun, Salomé Chatriot, Tony Colombe. K, Fronte Violeta, Lazare Lazarus, Clovis Maillet & Bob Mills and Lena Maria Thüring.
Initiated in 2019, Modern Nature aims to bring together works, ideas, and performances that echo Derek Jarman’s artistic work. The project, which pays tribute to the artist, his garden, and his activism, guides the reflections that underpin the design of this event.
La Becque has embarked on the creation of a garden and arts program inspired by the life and work of English filmmaker, artist, and writer Derek Jarman (1942-1994). Author of numerous short and feature films, paintings, sculptures, diaries, and essays, Jarman was also the creator of Prospect Garden, an extraordinary garden which he cultivated near Dungeness, on the English coast of Kent, until his last days, and which thrived despite the adverse coastline conditions (sharp pebble beaches, incessant wind, and biting sea spray). A “total” work of art, the garden and the adjoining cottage have become a place of pilgrimage for the artist’s many admirers.
Developed under the curatorship of Elise Lammer in 2019, the project was taken over by Vanessa Cimorelli in 2023. Modern Nature includes the development of a garden, comprising native plants, which are integrated into the wild meadows of La Becque, and pay tribute to Prospect Garden. Each year, the garden hosts Swiss and international artistic projects (performances and sculptures) designed for the site and related to Jarman’s work, in addition to film screenings and musical performances. Echoing the main themes explored by La Becque, i.e. the links between nature, the environment, and technology, seen through the prism of art, the project develops these thematic avenues by drawing on a particular place and a significant body of art, many aspects of which remain little-known in Switzerland.
After four editions dedicated to the themes of “Camp“, “Queer Nature“, the AIDS crisis and the garden as sanctuary, La Becque proposes a fifth iteration of Modern Nature, which this time focuses on thinking corporality through water(1), through a panorama of varied and original artistic practices.
The 5th edition of Modern Nature was supported by Loterie Romande, Fonds culturel Riviera and Ville de La Tour-de-Peilz.
(1) Neimanis, Astrida. Hydrofeminism: Or, on Becoming a Body of Water, 2012.
Photo: Modern Nature, La Becque, 2024, photo Julien Gremaud