Guerrilla knitting, yarn bombing, knit graffiti, street art, this colourful form of self-expression is seen in many locations around the world. Some use it as protest, others as a way to brighten up otherwise mundane, monochrome artefacts, buildings and street furniture.
Yarn Bombing: from Simple Beginnings to Worldwide Coverage
Guerrilla knitting was started by Magda Sayeg and her friends in Texas in 2005. They began decorating street furniture using yarn from unfinished knitting projects. Magda continues to travel, exhibit and undertake projects and installations around the world. Meantime, those who follow her lead have not only added colourful accents to street furniture such as steps, bicycle parking, lamp posts, buildings and architecture, but have also begun to use their art as a form of protest. Leiden in the Netherlands was extensively yarn bombed in 2011 including a series of snakes on bike racks, as reported in Maluca Yarnbombing blog. Meantime, Cornish guerrilla knitters have been invited to New York to showcase their work.
Guerrilla Knitters as Twenty First Century Protesters
When the British-based supermarket chain Tesco decided to open another store in the famous British university town of Cambridge, the yarn bombers took action, knitting the word ARROGANT and sewing it onto the scaffolding surrounding the site. Prospero, writing in The Economist in April 2011, reports on an anti-nuclear protest by two German students which has seen trees in Düsseldorf and Duisburg carrying their Atomkraft. Nein Danke message. Marianne Jorgensen covered a M24 Chaffee tank in a fetching blanket of shades of pink in a protest against the Iraq war in July 2011. In Los Angeles at around the same time, a group used the new art form to bring attention to cuts in elementary school funding by decorating a tree outside their local school.
Knitting Because of Protest as Well as to Order
There are people knitting for the Occupy protest movement, often making clothing to keep the hardier souls warm as mentioned in the Sanity * Sustainability blog, but also as pictured in the same blog, carefully crafted protest banners. Meanwhile, at the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham, England, the signature bull statue received a blue woolly jumper as an early Christmas gift. The team behind the garment said that they wanted to stage a guerrilla-style unveiling but were escorted away at their first attempt. However, the shopping centre owners invited them back as they had seen other examples of their work and liked it.
No less a magazine than Time has produced a photo gallery entitled The Fine Art of Yarn Bombing, suggesting that this once-underground movement is now gaining wider acceptance. It certainly adds a touch of colour to otherwise drab areas, much like the painted graffiti tagging to which it is often compared.
Sources:
- Magda Sayeg.com - Information on the founder of guerrilla knitting
- Maluca Yarnbombing - Details of extensive guerrilla knitting adventures
- Guerrilla knitters invited to New York - BBC Cornwall, 9 January 2012
- Knitting protest at Tesco - Raymond Brown, Cambridge Evening News, 12 August 2009
- Knitting against nuclear power - Prospero, The Economist, 15 April 2011
- Very Simply Overcomplicated - 13 July 2011
- A soft and colorful Highland Park protest against school budget cuts - The Eastsider LA, 12 June 2011
- Yarn bombing and retro creativity - Sanity * Sustainability, 27 December 2011
- Bullring bull statue gets jumper for Christmas - BBC Birmingham, 1 December 2011
- Birmingham bull gets Christmas jumper - IAmBirmingham, YouTube, 1 December 2011
- The Fine Art of Yarn Bombing - Time magazine photo gallery, undated that I could see
Sites retrieved December 2011 and January 2012 during article update.
Paula Thomas - Paula is, among other things, an editor & proofreader. She also enjoys technology - retro or modern - travel, music, motorsport and ...
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