A new land art installation on the moors
Sew Near – Sew Far, will see a large-scale, textile artwork at three sites on the Brontë Way; each one celebrating the famous signatures of the literary sisters. The installation will incorporate the signatures of over one hundred local people who donated their sewn autographs in workshops throughout the summer. The artworks form part of Brontë200, a five-year programme celebrating the bicentenaries of the births of four of the Brontës: Charlotte in 2016, Branwell in 2017, Emily in 2018 and Anne in 2020.
Artist Lynn Setterington said: “Signatures are an important marker of identity and the Brontë sisters famously used pseudonyms at their time of writing to disguise the fact they were women.
“I’m creating an artwork for Brontë Parsonage Museum exploring the adopted and real signatures of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. I’ll be working with local people to develop the artworks and inviting them to add their own signatures to the piece.
“We’re also creating a film documenting the whole process, which will be shown later in the year. I’ll be collaborating with community groups, volunteers and local people in West Yorkshire to create Sew Near – Sew Far and capturing the process is an important part of the artwork.”
Click here to view the location of the artworks, and to plan your walking route from the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Get involved and share your images of the work in situ on Twitter with the hashtag #SewNearSewFar, and look out for the completed film on our website in autumn 2017.
The project is part of the Meeting Point 2 project led by Arts&Heritage. It supports ten new contemporary art installations at museums across the North East, North West and Yorkshire during 2017. Meeting Point 2 is funded by Arts Council England's Museum Resilience Fund.