Mel Deerson: The Dream of the Mirror

Mel Deerson works prismatically across performance, video, sound, writing, drawing, curating and teaching. Their recent work reckons with the historical invisibility of queer desire; rather than imagine this as a ‘lack’, they consider this a generative portal for a revelatory, connecting spirit.

The Dream of the Mirror 2025 is an entirely improvised video shot on an iPhone using DIY and analogue effects. It conjures a kaleidoscopic dream vision using footage shot at Derek Jarman’s garden in Dungeness and surrounding areas. Jarman’s landscapes become a semi-abstract, mystical space viewed through the pane of a stained-glass window. A strange figure gestures among glowing poppies, stones flicker like the refraction of light on glass, and the sea pulses with its own electric field, all through the shining portal of a hand mirror. A music score created by the artist drives the rhythm of the work, drawing on medieval drones and songs, punk distortions and improvised synth experimentations.

The Dream of the Mirror has been commissioned by UNSW Galleries as a contemporary response to the exhibition Derek Jarman: Delphinium Days. It is accompanied by an artist publication that expands on the video’s visionary world through poems and drawings. 

Image: Mel Deerson, The Dream of the Mirror (still) 2025.