![Alex Parsons Alex Parsons](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lgbtq-research/sites/lgbtq_research/files/styles/medium_image/public/Alex.jpg?itok=HCg_uZ8q)
My research focuses on the life-writing of director, artist, writer and activist Derek Jarman. Jarman's political anger underlies his oeuvre: whether working across canvas, film, the page or the land, he repeatedly rehabilitates queer cultural figures from the past, using their lives as material to inform how to live in a time of crisis. As well as re-evaluating history, Jarman demonstrates the synchronicity between his individual experiences and those of queer friends and colleagues living in the hostile climate of Britain under Thatcher. I explore how he records these life stories as the means by which to provide social commentary and ignite political activism.