“For our house is our corner of the world. It is our first universe, a real cosmos in every sense,” wrote Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space. Prospect Cottage in Dungeness was the cosmos of Derek Jarman, the visionary British filmmaker, writer and artist. It is a strange building in an even stranger setting. Dungeness is a 12-square-mile stretch of shingle and marsh on the Kent coast. It is typically described as post-apocalyptic, despite being one of Britain’s richest nature reserves thanks to the lichens, insects and migratory birds who temporarily call it home. This belies its appearance as a barren wasteland, punctuated by a line of squat wooden buildings, loomed over by two nuclear power stations. All around the headland the sea glisters or roars, depending on the weath...