Opening Event: Fri 03 Jun 2022 5-8pm
Exhibition runs: Fri 03 Jun – Sun 31 Jul 2022
Open Weekly: Tue – Sat
10:30 – 3pm
SoSouth Square is pleased to present Go Back With Me, a compelling collection of multi-sensory artworks commissioned by the Brontë Parsonage Museum for Anne Brontë’s Bicentenary in 2020.
Anne Brontë first visited Scarborough in June 1840, making the trip annually until 1845. Her first journey to the coast was through her imagination, which is reflected in her drawings of the sea. Her last visit was in the hope of recovering from illness in 1849; she died within days of her arrival and was buried in Scarborough that same year.
Textile artist Lindsey Tyson and sonic artist Sarah Dew have collaborated to present a portfolio of work based on Anne Brontë’s significant trips to the seaside town. Expect to touch stunning textile pieces documenting the landmarks Anne would have seen on her journey. Listen to the church bells of Haworth and crashing seas of Scarborough alluding to Anne’s fight to stay alive as she slipped calmly into death.
Alongside these works, we are showcasing The Dark Store, a new audio work by artist Sarah Dew following on from her work on Anne Brontë, with collaborator Charlotte Oliver. The Dark Store is a 1hr audio work available to listen to in the South Square Garden. The piece will be aired on Chapel FM, in May 2022.
The Dark Store is an Arts Council-funded, hour-long radio ballad: a collection of spoken word and nine original folk songs, highlighting the significance of hidden labour and the lives of essential workers throughout history to the present day. Woven out of many threads, from historical texts to testimonies gathered during online writing sessions in lockdown, the stories told include that of a governess, the herring girls and miners, as well as contemporary supermarket and ‘dark store’ workers, a Glaswegian lorry driver, and NHS nurses in the pandemic. All of which have been worked into poetry, folk music and song by a collaboration of writer Charlotte Oliver and composer Sarah Dew.
The Dark Store provides a platform where voices are heard and invisibility is challenged, respect is promoted, and the creativity and spirit of those working in the dark is celebrated.
In our adjoining gallery space, see Speak Boldly, an exhibition featuring artwork created by Girls Hang Out, a local group for teenagers in Allerton. The work too uses Anne Brontë’s legacy as a starting point to think about the potential and desire for young people in Bradford to achieve, inspire and lead. The title and project are drawn from a story about Patrick Brontë, who once gave the children a mask and asked them to ‘Speak Boldly’ without fear of judgement, on what they wanted from life. The project used this story to talk about the masks we wear every day; on social media, with friends, or the way that our masks might make us feel bold and brave.
