Our third and final exhibition as curators-in-residence at The Fitzrovia Chapel opens on Thursday 15th October, with a private view 6-8pm. The exhibition then runs until 18th November 2026.
The inspiration for the exhibition is the text of Derek Jarman’s Blue, a film we first saw as students, when it was released in 1993. Rather than install Jarman’s film, we wanted to translate its singular gesture into a collective act of remembrance and resistance. The setting is deliberate and poignant: The Fitzrovia Chapel was once part of Middlesex Hospital, home to the country’s first dedicated HIV/AIDS wards.
At the heart of Middlesex Hospital Blues is a newly commissioned ambisonic work by composer, Simon Fisher Turner, drawing on his archive recordings of Derek Jarman during their long-running friendship and collaboration. The piece was created with Tilda Swinton, another frequent Jarman collaborator. The new composition weaves excerpts from an assortment of Jarman’s texts and projects, including Blue and Bliss. Sound design by Arup.
Working in dialogue with the sound piece, the artist Jenkin Van Zyl presents a new sculptural installation featuring mirrored sculptures of an embracing couple, holding one another upright, positioned before the altar. These chrome sculptures draw on the dance marathons of 1920s and 30s America, where couples danced for days in exchange for food, shelter and the slim chance of a prize. Holding each other upright was less devotion than survival.
