Butterflies and a Knob Gags

 The Yorkshire Post talks about Wild Uplands, the outdoor exhibition on Penistone Hill Country Park:

A series of eye catching, temporary sculptures have been installed on the moorlands that inspired the Brontë sisters.

A huge tower reflecting the district’s wool heritage, dozens of marble butterflies and supernatural creatures inspired by the Cottingley Faries hoax will be on display at Penistone Hill Country Park until October as part of a Bradford 2025.

Wild Uplands officially opens on May 24, but earlier this week media were given a tour of the installation while the finishing touches were being made.

The sculpture trail will be accompanied by a series of free events on the moors and in Haworth.

Four international artists were chosen for the outdoor exhibition – each one taking inspiration from the moors and the wider district. (Chris Young)

Regrettably, the butterflies one was vandalized on Monday, as we reported. Help to find the suspects is the petition of the BBC:

Police investigating damage caused by vandals to an art trail in Brontë country have appealed for help finding four suspects.

Two marble butterflies, part of an installation of dozens of similar sculptures at Penistone Hill Country Park, near Haworth, were smashed in the attack, with the damage reported to have happened between 19:45 BST and 20:15 BST on Monday.

Officers said they wanted to trace a group of four people thought to have been in the area on motorbikes or e-bikes at about the time the damage took place.

CCTV inquiries into the vandalism were continuing and Keighley Neighbourhood Policing teams would be carrying out patrols in the area, a West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said.

The stone butterflies of various sizes are part of four art installations on the trail

Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of the Bradford 2025 City of Culture team which was behind the trail, previously described the vandalism as "sad and disappointing".

However, she added that the trail would still open to the public on 24 May as planned.

The butterflies which were damaged were part of the Wild Uplands arts trail– a temporary exhibition due to run until October.

Commissioned by Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, the trail features the works of four artists.

The damaged sculptures near a pond had already been repaired, Ms Gulzar said.

The 75 butterflies are the work of Pakistani-born artist Meherunnisa Asad, in collaboration with Peshawar-based atelier Studio Lél, known for reviving centuries-old stone-work techniques. (Grace Wood)

The Telegraph interviews Anita Rani, who is the host of the upcoming documentary Sisters of Disruption: 

When Anita Rani was growing up in Bradford in the 1980s, a few miles from the village of Haworth, the Brontë sisters were ever-present. At her all-girls’ primary school, a print of Branwell Brontë’s portrait of his sisters – the only group painting of them that exists – was on display.

“My teachers were very proud of wanting to educate young girls about the Brontës,” says Rani. “We were spoon-fed the Brontës. Their story always felt personal to me, growing up in the same part of the world – but I wasn’t expecting to want to get a Brontë tattoo by the end of this.”

By “this”, Rani, 47, is referring to her Sky Arts documentary The Brontës by Anita Rani: Sisters of ­Disruption. The presenter’s name in the title isn’t by accident or vainglory – the film is partly biographical, exploring the parallels between Rani’s upbringing and that of the Brontës, and her growing personal connection to her “feminist heroes”.

As a child, she would roam the same moors as the trio, and felt a shared sense of frustration, dis­location, yearning and, most pertinently, rage. “People think of them as twee sisters, sitting around knitting and crocheting. But they were angry,” says Rani. The “disruption” in the title isn’t accidental, either – the siblings wanted to change the world around them; as does Rani.

The film sees the Countryfile and Woman’s Hour presenter returning to her West Yorkshire roots, visiting her parents’ old textile factory in Bradford, reacquainting herself with the moors of her youth, and ticking off a few things from the Brontë superfan bucket list – including having a moment at the very window that (most probably) was the inspiration for Wuthering Heights’ most famous scene.

Rani returned to Bradford to look at the impact that sisters had on her life 

In ­conversations with a band of female academics, Rani explores everything from the “whitewashing” of Heathcliff to Charlotte’s crusade to reclaim the sisters’ authorial identities, and how Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is helping women today who are escaping domestic violence.

Throughout the film is the thread of Rani’s own life. Speaking from her home in Hackney, London, she says that as a teenage Brontë fan, she didn’t yet see the connection. “I read Wuthering Heights and I loved it. I fancied Heathcliff. The mood, the tone, the gothic nature – as a moody, angsty teenage girl, living in that landscape, it just sat very comfortably with me. I didn’t want to read about arranged marriages or finding Mr Right, I wanted wild women running across the moors, falling in love with men they weren’t supposed to. And Jane Eyre. I really connected to this story of a woman who wanted to live her own life, be more independent.” (Chris Bennion)

The Sunday Times's TV guide recommends it:

 The Brontës — Sisters Of Disruption (Sky Arts/Now, 9pm)

The broadcaster Anita Rani has been obsessed with the Brontës since her childhood in Bradford, saying they shaped her formative years. In this impassioned documentary, Rani digs into issues of race, death and female rage stirred up by the sisters’ “punk” life and work, speaking to academics about Heathcliff’s whitewashing, the freedom of the moors and Charlotte Brontë’s unexpected “knob gag”. (Victoria Segal)

"The 19 most beautiful villages in the UK you'll want to move to immediately" include Haworth, according to Express:

10. Haworth, Yorkshire

Perched on a hilltop in the heart of Yorkshire’s Brontë country, Haworth is heaven for literature lovers. The wild and windy moors that inspired Wuthering Heights can be seen from steep cobbled streets lined with soot-blackened stone book shops, boutiques, pubs and tea rooms. The Brontë Parsonage Museum can be found in the former family home where the sisters wrote their world-famous works. Also worth a visit is the Keighley and Worth Valley Heritage Railway, where steam engines whistling through the village add to the antiquated charm of a place untouched by time. (Steffan Rhys)

The Philippine Star lists books by women about women:

 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Brontë

“I am not a piece of clay to be moulded by hand.”

Charlotte Brontë’s "Jane Eyre," a classic, is many things: It is a love story, a gothic fiction, and a social criticism. At its heart is the moving journey of intelligent and perceptive Jane Eyre, and her pursuit of freedom and equality. (Dolly Di-Zulueta)

Times Now News on the quiet power of rereading books:

 When I first read 'Jane Eyre', I saw it as a romantic tale with a brooding hero and a determined girl who stood up for herself. But I did not think much of Jane’s loneliness, her moral dilemmas, or her inner struggle for dignity. I was too young to understand the weight of being a woman who demands respect on her own terms. (Girish Shukla)

The Brussels Brontë Blog posts about the recent talk in Brussels by Nick Holland, Doubt, Defiance and Devotion. Faith and the Brontë Sisters.