Derek Jarman, Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping
An archival reading of Derek Jarman’s sole work of narrative fiction, Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping (Prototype Publishing / House Sparrow Press) — as read by the author — in a special broadcast to mark the 30th anniversary of Jarman’s death.
Derek Jarman was always an inspirational Renaissance figure, whose solidarity and commitment grounded his intense imagination. Here we can see for the first time how this remarkable conjunction of forces was present in his earliest work, and in a medium we did not associate with him—until now. – John Akomfrah
Written in 1971, Jarman’s Billboard is a surreal, fabular, lyrical work—a literary fairy-tale, acid-trip, road movie hybrid—the energies and details of which influenced much of his later work across media. The story serves as a foundational text, laying out many of the themes, images, and styling of his work in painting, film and design whilst also being haunted by the then emerging ecological crisis in its juxtaposition of the beauty of nature with the reckless consumption of modernity.
The House Sparrow Press edition features facsimile images of the story’s handwritten drafts from Jarman’s archive and is comprehensively informed by a vivid foreword from Philip Hoare, a deeply researched afterword by Jarman scholar Declan Wiffen, and a warm memoir by artist Michael Ginsborg, a close friend of Jarman’s throughout the period of the story’s writing.
In this blown-away piece of Jarman magic, a fantasy / fable about how to see differently and a cornucopic visual version of the psyche, Derek Jarman casually reconstructs notions of empire, the road trip, and the mid-twentieth century journey of the soul. Trippy, light, fantastic. – Ali Smith
The Resonance broadcast is introduced by a collage of comments from the publication’s launch at the London Review Bookshop (03.11.22), with contributions from (in order of appearance) Gareth Evans, Declan Wiffen and So Mayer, alongside excerpts from Benedict Drew’s Music for Bookshops. Listen to the launch event in full here (with thanks to Claire Williams and all at the Shop).
Derek Jarman (1942-1994) is one of the most influential figures in 20th century British culture. Best known as an iconoclastic filmmaker and polemical gay activist who channeled unparalleled energy into painting, writing, gardening and all manner of cultural activity, he was one of the primary catalysts for a generation of artists and filmmakers whose work is only now being fully recognised for its dark, subversive imagination and fluidity across media. Amongst his films, Jarman is particularly recognised for Jubilee (1977), arguably the first punk movie, Caravaggio (1986), and Blue (1993), a moving memoir about his degeneration from AIDS.
Formed in 2016 to publish A Sparrow’s Journey: John Berger reads Andrey Platonov, House Sparrow Press—an imprint of Prototype Publishing—is, in the best and multiple senses of the word (it is hoped) an ‘occasional’ venture. Based in Hackney, London, it seeks to publish creatively committed, collaborative works both at a time that is relevant and for reasons that feel compelling. It is drawn to manuscripts of hybridity, titles that might elude conventional publication over concerns of form or scale. It also believes in a modesty of style (but never of ambition) and a fecundity of ideas. Its moniker (drawn from its first venture) celebrates a creature that was once ubiquitous and yet is now threatened. The idea of a bird inhabiting and inspiring a place of residence also feels resonant. This is what the best books do too. There are wings at work here. In short, Emily Dickinson was right (again) when she observed that ‘hope is the thing with feathers.’ House Sparrow Press comprises publisher Jess Chandler and editor Gareth Evans.
Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping broadcasts on Resonance Extra and Resonance 104.4FM as a part of a collaborative series of radio works from Tenement Press and Prototype Publishing, Railroad Flat Radio. Thanks to Milo Thesiger-Meacham.