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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.
