Brontë Country in a post

The Brontë Parsonage blog reports the happy news that Cornelia Parker has kindly donated 10 Brontëan Abstracts to the Parsonage. This only boosts the hopes of turning the Parsonage into an Arts centre, brimming with new projects and creative energies.

“The opening of Cornelia Parker’s exhibition launched the first-ever Contemporary Arts Programme at the Museum, with Germaine Greer as our Honorary Patron. We could now be considered as a vibrant creative centre as well as a world centre for Brontë studies. [...]
“The Programme will also help the Society and the Museum to more fully reflect the radical creative energies of the Brontës by adding to a traditional reputation for conservation and commemoration of the Brontës with a new role as advocates for imagination, creativity and artistic achievement.
“There is much that is already happening, and the plans for 2007 are exciting.[...]
“The programme of special education projects aimed at disadvantaged groups will (funding permitting) continue with The Collecting Place. This will involve working with photographer Simon Warner and a group of visually-impaired youngsters. A walk-in camera obscura will be constructed and used to create large-format images of the Parsonage and other Brontë-related sites. This will form the basis of an exhibition.“There will also be talks by Gaskell biographer Jenny Uglow (celebrating the anniversary of the publication of Life of Charlotte Brontë), Pamela Norris, author of Words of Love: Passionate Women from Heloise to Sylvia Plath, Gail Nina Anderson from the Friends of the Laing Gallery (on John Martin), biographer and novelist Victoria Glendinning (on writers and their homes) and a panel discussion focusing on Brontë biography which will feature Juliet Barker, Rebecca Fraser, Lyndall Gordon, Edward Chitham and Justine Picardie.
“The work we are doing is groundbreaking, I think.”

We think so too. And knowing the Brontës, they would be only too happy to let someone else into the spotlight for a while :)

If you still want more plans and projects, Thisisbradford reports that the Haworth Traders Association is reunited and hard at work. We couldn't help but smile at the Christmas plans.

She said the association again planned to have a Santa's grotto in the village this Christmas.
However, she said the admission charge to the grotto would only be £1 this year, as last Christmas the attraction's £5 admission charge was attacked as being too expensive.
She said this Christmas, entertainment should involve the whole length of Main Street. She said in previous years, some traders complained parts of the street were neglected over the festive season.

Of course it's not so funny if you don't remember last year's War of the Santas.

Categories: Brontë_Parsonage_Museum, Art-Exhibitions, Haworth