Issue 9_FOCUS from the AOP_September 2025 - Flipbook - Page 38
“Quite often I will set out for a run, and don’t really know where I am going – so I will head out, come up here on Thornton Moor and time just disappears really,
I just feel pleased to be part of the landscape” Norah McWilliam - Runner, Campaigner and Adventurer - Thornton Moor
CAROLYN MENDELSOHN
HARDY AND FREE
'I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free…’ Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Hardy and Free is a major outdoor photography exhibition celebrating the connections between the magnificent
landscapes of Yorkshire and 12 extraordinary local women. Carolyn Mendelsohn, set out in 2023 to explore the
links between the natural world and women in Yorkshire: farmers, artists, swimmers, athletes, gardeners and
more. Her subjects are diverse in background and age, but they all share a profound emotional link with the
landscapes that define our part of the world – from remote moorlands to urban parks, waterfalls to working
farms.
Originally commissioned in 2023 by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, based on the quote by Emily Brontës and
inspired by the Brontës’ own relationship with the land around Haworth. Two years later, Carolyn has expanded
the project for Bradford 2025 with new photographs – all printed to huge scale and presented on the exterior of
the Kirkgate Shopping Centre. You can also hear audio interviews and recordings made with many of the women
featured in the portraits
The result is a powerful reflection on place, identity and creativity – inviting us to consider how the landscapes
around us shape who we are, and how we find our place within them.
https://bradford2025.co.uk/event/hardy-and-free/
© Carolyn Mendelsohn
© Carolyn Mendelsohn
