Artist and historian Jane Palm-Gold has completed her five-year project on the legendary film-maker Derek Jarman

IT was the summer of 1979 when film-maker Derek Jarman closed the front door of a large and swanky Bankside warehouse overlooking the Thames for the last time and headed to his new home, a small flat in Phoenix House, Flitcroft Street, right in the heart of the West End.

While Jarman’s garden at his last home in Dungeness has become renowned, his lesser known garden at Phoenix House was both an inspiration to and reflection of the man.

Now curator, artist, and historian Jane Palm-Gold has completed a five-year project into his life and times in St Giles.

The result is a multi-genre exhibition – Derek Jarman: From Soho To The Fifth Continent – to include screening and talk as well as art show.

Jane Palm-Gold said: “Since 2006 my work has been recreate, record, and present to the public the incredibly rich London history of the ancient parish of St Giles. This exhibition completes many years of investigative research and creative work into the ancient site surrounding St Giles-in-the-Fields church.”

Blending new art, previously unseen photography, and history, Jarman’s life at Phoenix House and then Prospect Cottage are laid bare.

Palm-Gold lives in St Giles: and her home patch has provided her with a wealth of material to investigate. She worked with the Museum of London to create The Secret Life of the Rookery exhibition. She said she wanted to explore Jarman’s relationship with places.

Derek Jarman [Gorup de Besanez (CC BY-SA 3.0) detail]

She drew on his diaries and persuaded many friends and colleagues to contribute. These include his producer James Mackay and his assistant director John Scarlett-Davis.

“The inspiration began as an enquiry into Derek’s life at Phoenix House as part of ongoing research into the history of St Giles,” she said.

“Much like his ‘city garden’ this soon flourished into an investigation into the work he created there, into his diaries and journals about life in the West End.

“I felt there was more to learn about his life at Phoenix House, the landscape he looked out upon from his balcony intrigued me. There are features in the vista there that echo those of his garden in Dungeness.

“Of course, the sculptures there were created by him using natural materials; the grimy industrial fixtures and features of his view at Phoenix House were imposed upon him, old chimneys, roofs and metal stairways jutting into the sky above St Giles.”

But there is still no sign at Phoenix House that it was his home, she added. “There is no blue plaque. I hope this exhibition goes some way to raise awareness of the importance of his films and work he made there and to recognise him as a creative force that blazed within the landscape of St Giles.

“It would be wonderful to acknowledge that he was and is the missing piece of our community’s history.”

• Derek Jarman: From Soho to the Fifth Continent – An Exhibition, Screening and Talk by Jane Palm-Gold is on at the Farsight Gallery, Flitcroft Street, from September 5.