Nostalgia + Culture = ‘Heritage’?
Reading a little sunny news, that Derek Jarman’s Dungeness Cottage has been ‘saved for the nation’ as the saying goes…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/31/35m-crowdfunding-campaign-saves-derek-jarman-kent-home-prospect-cottage-tilda-swinton
… I was led to Tilda Swinton’s appreciation of Jarman, and his legacy.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/aug/17/books.featuresreviews
A wonderful tribute, in praise of the avant-garde, the marginal, the improvised, the unlicensed. But I couldn’t help reflecting that Swinton rails against ‘…the idea of […] culture from heritage, heritage from tourism…’ but of course now Jarman’s house by the sea will inevitably take its place in the ‘culture/heritage/tourism industry’
It’s funny because I had been reading something a little similar about how some residents in certain areas of Los Angeles don’t want public access to the Hollywood sign as it kind of increases the negative issues that tourism can cause for residents in those areas… such as lack of privacy.
Obviously thats slightly different. But I have always found it a little strange the kind of preservation of houses for viewing in this way. Again slightly different but I am interested in the sort of decaying and forgotten celebrity mansions that have just been left to fall into disrepair after the owners departed. There are quite a few interesting cases especially if the owner had multiple homes.
The house Tom of Finland lived that in Echo Park in Los Angeles has been made a cultural heritage site. What’s interesting about that space is it is still lived in and used as both a house and a museum/gallery.