AiRM 2022

Modern Nature Trail is an Art in Romney Marsh project celebrating 100 years of queer creativity on the marsh.

We have commissioned Rachael House to create a series of new work inspired by Modern Nature Trail. Ceramic works are glazed, tiled stoneware panels, with oxide texts and drawing.

Vita Sackville-West, 1892-1962, gardener, author, bisexual. A quotation from her poem, The Garden, ‘Homesick we are, and always, for another And different world’

The Garden is a war poem, looking through the lens of seasons in nature as seasons in life. I’ve selected this phrase as it seems to have a particular queer melancholy and longing about it, that is applicable to many queer readings today.

Derek Jarman, in this year of the platinum jubilee, and shortly after Jordan Mooney’s death, this work references Jarman’s film Jubilee, and one of it’s actors, Jordan, who played Amyl Nitrate.

‘Don’t dream it, be it’

This is Amyl Nitrate’s preferred motto in the film and it’s a song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this piece has layers of queer meanings.

Radclyffe Hall. By any other name - John, Stephen, Radclyffe, Marguerite. John was a name used by Radclyffe Hall, given to her by a lover, Stephen is the ‘hero’ of her semi-autobiographical novel The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe is her writing nom de plume and Marguerite was the name given to her by her parents. The names written together are reminiscent of a band, particularly ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo’. 

Today, we also think of the importance of queer chosen names, for trans people especially. While not claiming Radclyffe Hall as trans, it’s interesting to think about how she may have identified in the 21st century.

We are grateful to RDHCT and Kent County Council for funding us to build on our heritage research and community outreach. We want to thank Arts Council England and National Heritage Lottery for supporting our projects and allowing us the chance to commission from such an amazing and exciting number of contemporary artists