The Outsider,
the Brontë Parsonage Museum

A sound installation exhibited at the Brontë Parsonage Museum (October 2018 – January 2019), supported by Grant in Aid through Arts Council England.

Rachel Emily Taylor worked with children from schools in Keighley and Haworth to explore ideas of a ‘contemporary Heathcliff’. The children took part in creative workshops which allowed them to explore the landscape surrounding the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The children’s behaviour on Penistone Hill differed from that in the classroom and was reminiscent of Heathcliff’s relationship with the moors.

Rachel recorded the children reading poems that they had written about ‘being’ in the landscape. These recordings were then shaped into ‘clock chimes’ that ‘ring’ every fifteen minutes. The sound was embedded in a walnut case, reminiscent of a mantelpiece clock. 

The chimes ring over a four-hour period, echoing the length of time it took Lockwood to walk from Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange; connecting the routine of the contemporary classroom, Heathcliff’s harsh treatment, and the children’s experience on the moors.

The Anthem

Children from the Putney Treblemakers learn Handel’s “Foundling Hospital Anthem”, exhibited as part of the artist residency closing event at the Foundling Museum.

An Interruption

Children’s voices – reading their foundling character’s names – echo in time with the Foundling Museum clocks, chiming on each quarter-hour. The work played on the idea that children should be seen and not heard.