Lecture on ‘Derek Jarman’ by Cy Lecerf Maulpoix

WED 18 NOV 2026 — 4.00pm
A lecture organised as part of the educational programme, open to the public. Cy Lecerf Maulpoix is an author, translator and lecturer in critical theory at the city’s School of Fine Arts (INSEAMM).

From this exile, the abject continues to defy its master.
Reflections on impurity in the work of Derek Jarman

This lecture offers a journey backwards through the life and work of the English painter, gardener, writer and film-maker Derek Jarman, focusing on those aspects of his work that defy the categories of the proper, the pure and the conventional. From the devastated urban landscapes of *Jubilee* to the ruined England of *The Last of England* (1987), from the Black Paintings to the tar paintings, from the sculptures made of wood, flint and scrap to the first gardens of childhood – what do dirt, rubbish, toxins, tar, scrap, the impure and the offensive tell us?  Often dismissed, these margins are matter, image, garden, narrative and political utopia. They sketch out an ecology in their own right, particularly attuned to the forms of wildness that survive the ravages of modernity.

Biography

Cy Lecerf Maulpoix lives in Marseille. He is an author, translator and lecturer in critical theory at the city’s School of Fine Arts (INSEAMM). 
He is currently working on several writing projects exploring the links between hygienism, the history of sexualities and ecology, as well as a PhD in anthropology at EHESS.
At the end of October, he published his first work of fiction, *Fécal, chronique d’un reste de terre*, with Trou Noir, and contributed to a collective work on Derek Jarman published in 2024 by JRP Éditions.

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