The Weather Project
22 June – 5 September 2012
The Brontës use descriptions of weather at key emotional points in their novels, and their own daily lives were strongly affected by the elements. In 2011 artist Rebecca Chesney installed a weather station at the Parsonage and working with a team of local weather collectors, recorded weather patterns for 12 months. Rebecca cross-referenced this new data with descriptions of the weather in the Brontës’ letters and novels to create new visual artwork for display at the Museum. The exhibition explored many fascinating questions including: which Brontë sister used the most sunshine in her novels? 1848 was a particularly wet year, could this have affected Emily and Branwell’s susceptibility to TB? And why did Charlotte write about the weather much more obsessively once she had lost her siblings?
Rebecca’s research blog can be found here.