A crowd­fund­ing effort has saved Derek Jarman’s sea­side cottage

This filthy Amer­i­can made his first pil­grim­age to the proud bosom of Britain last year, for a hol­i­day with a minor side of research. I’d been assigned an essay about Derek Jar­man​’s geo­graph­i­cal lega­cy in the UK, prompt­ed by the then-recent com­mem­o­ra­tion of his Eng­lish Her­itage blue plaque, and paid a vis­it to his for­mer home at Butler’s Wharf along the South Bank.

The most impor­tant thing I learned dur­ing this time was that though Jar­man did make his res­i­dence in Lon­don prop­er at one point, the late artist and filmmaker’s truest home rests in Kent, where he spent some of his most cre­ative­ly fer­tile years. Though it looked for a time like that prop­er­ty may be left to rot while preser­va­tion­ist efforts con­cen­trate them­selves on Butler’s Wharf, today brings the wel­come news that this his­tor­i­cal site won’t be going away any time soon.

The Guardian reports today that a crowd­fund­ing effort to save Jarman’s sea­side cot­tage in Dun­ge­ness, launched by his long­time friend and col­lab­o­ra­tor Til­da Swin­ton, has suc­ceed­ed in amass­ing £3.5 mil­lion and will keep Jarman’s mem­o­ry alive for the indef­i­nite future. The arti­cle states that this rep­re­sents the largest-ever arts-cen­tric crowd­fund­ing cam­paign in UK history.

Prospect Cot­tage, over­look­ing the surf and in the shad­ow of Dun­ge­ness’ famed nuclear pow­er sta­tion, housed Jar­man for the final eight years of his life pri­or to his death from the HIV/AIDS epi­dem­ic. It was there that he made such cru­cial works as The Gar­den (in no small part a con­flict­ed love let­ter to the area) and his exper­i­men­tal mas­ter­piece Blue. It’s not uncom­mon for Jar­man dis­ci­ples to vis­it and pay their respects, treat­ing his old haunt like a sacred space.

In its new iter­a­tion, the cot­tage will host small tours for the pub­lic by appoint­ment, and will also pro­vide the site for a paid ​“res­i­den­cy” for artists, aca­d­e­mics, film­mak­ers, writ­ers, and gar­den­ers. More impor­tant­ly, its image will remain, an ever­last­ing trib­ute to a sin­gu­lar tal­ent whose films and queer activism will now inspire the next gen­er­a­tion to call his house their home.