Knit a River

Knit a River, Photo Courtesy of iknitlondon

Knit a River is a project that perfectly embodies the Craftivist collision with Network Cultures. It was organized by the London group I Knit in conjunction with WaterAid, a charity organization that aims to provide access to safe water all over the globe, as a protest to raise awareness for this inequality. In June of 2006, I Knit invited the global knitting population to contribute to the project by sending six inch blue squares. The squares would then be sewn together to make a patchwork blanket of squares from all over the world. 

I Knit received 100,000 blue squares and the blanket traveled to venues around Europe in parades or draped across surfaces to invite people to hang out in the "river." In May 2007, over 200 knitters and WaterAid volunteers joined to carry part of the river down the Albert Embankment to give to the Prime Minister in order to put the issue in the spotlight right before the G8 Summit.

Knit a River, Photo Courtesy of iknitlondon

Knit a River embodies the type of peaceful protest that can occur when likeminded individuals come together to promote change. Through the use of a global network, I Knit was able to exponentially increase their workforce, just the type of activities which occur when social networks and services crowd source their online communities.

Pink M.24 Chaffee

In 2006, a combat tank from World War II was placed in front of the Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. Volunteers were responsible for crocheting and knitting pink squares to construct a blanket to completely cover the tank. Though passerbys were free to contribute squares to the project. The "pink tank," as it is sometimes called, was a form of protest against Denmark's involvement in the Iraq war. Over 4,000 squares were used to create the blanket, representing the wide spread of global protest.

From the Pink M.24 Chaffee website:

Unsimilar to a war, knitting signals home, care, closeness and time for reflection... For me, the tank is a symbol of stepping over other people's borders. When it is covered in pink, it becomes completely unarmed and it loses it's authority. Pink becomes a contrast in both material and color when combined with the tank.

The artist responsible for the "Pink Tank" is Marianne Jørgensen. She got submissions from knitting groups from all over the world through the widespread network culture. Today, with websites like Ravelry, an online knitting and crocheting community, which has over one million members, Jørgensen probably could have expanded her outreach exponentially. 

Craftivist Collective

Sarah Corbett was blogging as A Lonely Craftivist when fellow knitters started asking her about a potential collaboration. She then started the Craftivist Collective to join knittivists to create projects "to expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. This will be done through provocative, non-violent creative actions." There are two groups who meet in England, but they present their work and have collaborators all over the world. You can also get kits from them to perform the same type of work, no matter your location. They use the global network that the internet provides to expand their physical network and they invite any level of crafters to join their efforts. And when they meet, they sometimes get guest artists to come and present their works.

To the left is a collage of the Craftivist Collective's latest project (courtesy of their website), which was a Bed-In in conjunction with John Lennon's 70th birthday in October. The Bed-In was a peaceful protest to promote awareness of issues local and global with a Beatles perspective (ie All you Need is Love), by "sewing and stitching their way to peace... to show how inequality in all forms causes conflict." Below is the progress on the quilt, from craftivists all over the world portraying their peace patches.

Iranian New Art

Iranian New Art is a network of women from Iran who "work together to make large scale art work in [the] environment." They use materials found in nature, such as leaves or moss, to create dynamic textiles to promote awareness of ecological issues in Iran.

From the Textile Arts Center's Blog:

Their projects to date have included crocheted wool and spun fiber installed as webbing in vacant Persian interiors, dense forests, and as organically generated diagrams on remote island coasts and desert salt flats. These site-specific creations seem to transcend the boundaries of ‘women’s work’ with their haunting outlines and schemes for ethereal but very convincing activism.

(آسمان هفتم(هفتاد هزار پرده  Image courtesy of http://iraniannewart.blogspot.com/

"فرش" خزه  Image courtesy of http://iraniannewart.blogspot.com/

"فرش"برگهای سوزنی کاج  Image courtesy of http://iraniannewart.blogspot.com/

"چهل تیکه" برگهای رنگی  Image courtesy of http://iraniannewart.blogspot.com/

microRevolt

Cat Mazza, Image courtesy of http://www.juliachristensen.com/

Cat Mazza is an artist who created microRevolt, which brings together craftivists from all over the world and "develops projects which combine knitting with machines, and digital social networks to investigate and initiate discussion about sweatshop labour." (From We Make Money Not Art interview) Their biggest project to date is a petition to Nike about their use of sweatshops. The petition exists as a 15 foot wide blanket that displays the Nike Swoosh, made up of 4 inch squares sent by knitters from over 30 countries. The corresponding website has links of each country exhibited, and if you click on any country, white squares will appear on the blanket, showing the location of all of the contributors from that country, and if you scroll over the white square, the name of the contributor will also appear (see below, Iceland is highlighted, with one knitter contributing a square from Reykjavik.) This allows us to see the network of knitters that she obtained through a Network Society, ie Social Media.

knitPro Chart for 

The Infrastructural City

In order to gain more and more contributions, Mazza put a free knitting chart maker on the microRevolt website, called knitPro, with an option to donate through PayPal or to contribute a square to the Nike petition. With knitPro, you can upload any image and the program will turn it into a chart, which can then be knit or embroidered (this goes back to the idea of 0s and 1s being the foundation of knitting.. everything is based on a grid system). So, Mazza provides a free service that's tucked in the microRevolt website, in hopes of further disseminating her activism.

During a lecture at the Textile Arts Center this November given by Sabrina Gschwandter, an audience member asked if Mazza had given the Nike blanket to the Nike executives, which was originally part of the plan. Gschwandter, a fiber artist and writer, responded by saying that the blanket is still traveling around in different art venues around the country, which is probably proving to have a more significant impact than if Mazza handed the blanket over to Nike. Through the continual travel of the 15 foot blanket, Mazza's spreading her vision to more and more people, even two years after the blanket was completed. If she had just handed it over, it probably would have disappeared and the message would have been forgotten soon after. Instead, each time the blanket reaches a new location, more Revolutionaries join the fight against sweatshop labor. 

Open Source Embroidery

HTML Patchwork by Ele Carpenter
Image courtesy of flickr user Furtherfield

Open Source Embroidery: Craft and Code is an art movement that combines technological practices through embroidery, knitting, quilting, weaving, and other crafts. It was first displayed at an exhibition in London in 2008 at the http:// gallery and has since traveled to Sweden and the United States. 

When I explain the concept of knitting to a non-knitter, I always start with comparing knitting to binary code. Binary code consists of 0s and 1s, and by combining these two elements, you can get endless systems, creating the foundation of our Network Culture. Knitting is very similar in theory. There are just two stitch types: knit and purl. Every sweater, scarf, hat, glove, etc. consists of just these two basic elements, and through the manipulation of these two elements, you can create endless combinations. Easy, right? Ele Carpenter, the creater/curator of Open Source Embroidery uses a similar approach to explain her reasoning for combining Craft and Code:

"Embroidery is constructed (mostly by women) in hundreds of tiny stitches which are visible on the front of the fabric. The system of the stitches is revealed on the back of the material. Some embroiderers seal the back of the fabric, preventing others from seeing the underlying structure of the pattern. Others leave the back open for those who want to take a peek. A few integrate the backend process into the front of the fabric. The patterns are shared amongst friends in knitting and embroidery 'circles'.

Software is constructed (mostly by men) in hundreds of tiny pieces of code, which form the hidden structure of the programme or interface. Open Source software allows you to look at the back of the fabric, and understand the structure of your software, modify it and distribute it. The code is shared amongst friends through online networks. However the stitches or code only make sense to those who are familiar with the language or patterns.

The same arguments about Open Source vs Free Software can be applied to embroidery. The needlework crafts also have to negotiate the principles of 'freedom' to create, modify and distribute, within the cultural and economic constraints of capitalism. The Open Source Embroidery project simply attempts to provide a social and practical way of discussing the issues and trying out the practice. Free Software, Open Source, amatuer and professional embrioderers and programmers are welcome to contribute to the project."

Carpenter initiated The HTML Patchwork, shown in the image above, consisting of 216 hexagonal pieces of fabric in websafe colors quilted together. All contributors have a background in craft AND code, so that each piece is a genuine compilation of the low-tech/high-tech mentality. There is a wiki site for each participant to share the story of their patch and their history with craft.

The Open Source Embroidery project was featured in WIRED magazine's Gadget Lab section (showcasing "hardware that rocks your world"), titled "Geek Art: Needlework Brings Together Programmers, Crafters." The article corresponded with the US opening of the exhibition. 

Knitted Blog by Suzanne Hardy

Image courtesy of flickr user Furtherfield

Knitted Blog used Open Source networking to gather all of the components from knitters around the world, then all of the "knittivists" (like craftivists) could post their contributions to the glittyknittykitty blog. Each piece was sent to multiple participants and was continuously added to, diminishing a sort of ownership, and establishing an arena for creative commons.