Hope's Whisper Exhibition

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Hope’s whisper: Rebecca Chesney
22 June – 5 September 2012
Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth

At times - I hear the renewal of Hope's whisper - but I dare not listen too fondly - she deceived me cruelly before. A sudden change to cold would be the test - I dread such change but must not anticipate. Spring lies before us - and then Summer - surely we may hope a little.

(Letter written by Charlotte Brontë concerning her sister Anne's failing health)

The Brontë novels are rooted in the landscape of the Yorkshire moors, and its turbulent weather is vividly represented throughout their literary worlds. A new exhibition of work by artist Rebecca Chesney, Hope’s Whisper, opening at the Brontë Parsonage Museum on Friday 22 June, will explore the ways in which the weather in Haworth inspired the lives and works of the Brontë sisters.

In October 2011 Rebecca Chesney installed a solar powered, digital weather station at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth to collect data such as rainfall, wind speed, air pressure and temperature. During her residency she has been reading letters and novels by the Brontës and researching local historical weather records to cross-reference similarities and differences with the present day. Rebecca also worked with a group of 10 local weather collectors and pupils at Haworth Primary School to capture personal descriptions of the weather in Haworth for twelve months.

An archive of handwritten historical weather records from the 1800’s, loaned from Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley, enabled Chesney to find out what the weather was like when the Brontës were living in Haworth. Using this data, she has produced a series of screen prints relating weather patterns to key dates during the Brontë sisters’ lives and deaths. Each image is an over-layered mass of data, unreadable in its intensity and suggestive of the severe and devastating impact that weather had on the Brontës health. Rebecca has also analysed the number of times that each Brontë sister describes a particular type of weather in their novels, to identify the elements that each most frequently draws on; Charlotte precipitation, Emily wind and Anne sunshine. This research forms the basis of The Three Bells sculpture which will be exhibited in the Parsonage garden.

Rebecca’s research has also drawn out the ways in which the Brontë sisters frequently referred to the weather in their personal correspondence. Charlotte’s references to the changing weather become more urgent in her letters throughout 1848 and 1849 as she loses her three siblings one by one to consumption. It was hoped that the milder climate of Scarborough might help to improve Anne Brontë’s condition, but it was not to be and she died there in May 1849. Local weather records from the 1840s also show that in 1848 – the year that Branwell and Emily died of tuberculosis – the rainfall was significantly greater than average. Might this wet weather have increased their susceptibility to TB?

“Rebecca Chesney mixes contemporary concerns such as ecology and climate change with a close reading of the Brontës’ daily lives. We hope that by visiting this exhibition and seeing Rebecca’s exciting body of work, visitors will discover just how significant the weather was in shaping life in Haworth in the 1800s”. (Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

To accompany her exhibition, on the evening of Thursday 26 July, 7pm Rebecca Chesney will be in conversation at the Brontë Parsonage Museum with writer and critic Alexandra Harris, on the cultural significance of weather. The evening takes place at the museum after closing, and tea and cake will be served. Tickets £16 and must be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Hope’s whisper continues at South Square Gallery in Thornton, 7 July until 29 July 2012.