Being Blue is the outcome of a residency Luke Fowler undertook at Prospect Cottage, Dungeness. Prospect Cottage is the former home of artist, filmmaker, and gay rights activist Derek Jarman (1942 - 1994). Jarman moved to the house in 1986 after being diagnosed with HIV and spent his last years until his death at the cottage developing a garden alongside his writing, painting and film-making practice. Prospect Cottage often became a nexus around which friends and collaborators would gather, and much of Jarman’s work and activism would coalesce in the new context of the shingle landscape. Blue (1993) was Jarman’s last film. As a symptom of his illness, he began losing his sight, which increasingly appeared as flashes of what he described as Yves klein blue, his favourite colour. In the film, which is as unflinchingly political as it is poetic, Jarman straightforwardly talks about his body being affected by the illness and addresses his fears about his impending death and the blatant homophobia of the mainstream press and Thatcherite government of the time. The uncompromising nuclear landscape of Dungeness, and the garden that Jarman miraculously brought to life there, are central to understanding Jarman’s work and legacy, and Fowler’s poetic exploration in 16mm film reveals the depth of his engagement and understanding of Prospect Cottage and its significance. The film interacts with all of the elements that Jarman found compelling and that can be found in his oeuvre. His poetry, paintings, garden and books. The title of the film is a clear reference to the film Blue but also a nod to the sensitivity needed when inhabiting such a significant physical and psychological space of his subject. It is a film about being there. Fowler gets unflinchingly close at times, yet also seems to maintain a respectful distance. He inhabits without consuming and as such it is a delicate and sensitive invitation into the world and mind of Derek Jarman; a poetically powerful evocation of how place can become another kind of space altogether. The film includes newly discovered audio recordings of Jarman in conversation, and as such feels like an intimate yet impossible collaboration. The place speaks to us and Fowler, with accompanying contributions of Simon Fisher Turner, Oliver Coates and Bruce Gilbert’s soundscapes and music, channels its multiple actors through sound and image. It is a poetic and impressionistic exploration of sexuality, of art, of life and of nature.