This could be just the thing to finally motivate me to learn how to knit…
I’d heard of tale of yarn bombing before, but this subtle yet heartwarming bombing of bike racks off of Berlin’s Rosenthalerstraβe was the first time I’d seen this delightful art form in person.
Yarn bombing adds bright colours in unexpected places and hints at humans’ capacity to care even for the well-being of inanimate objects. Just as wonderful, in my opinion, is the humour with which many guerrilla knitters have approached their projects. Seattle’s YarnCore collective is called “Hardcore Chicks With Sharp Sticks.” A New York Times article on yarn bombing references a book by Vancouver knitters who call on readers to “take back the knit,” and wear “‘ninja’ black to avoid capture.”
Knit the City, London’s graffiti knitting collective, defines yarnstorming or yarn bombing as: “the art of enhancing a public place or object with graffiti knitting…(or putting knitting on something unexpected in public and running always giggling wildly).” The collective’s website casts its members in the Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne mold, a seemingly regular or even boring person concealing a secret identity that is much more powerful and exciting: “Knit the City’s Yarn Corps spend most of their lives operating under assumed names and living their lives like every day people.”
Then again, these endeavours are not always to be taken lightly. Agata Oleksiak or “Olek” might be best known for covering the Wall Street bull in a neon pink coat in 2010, but she has also been responsible for many other similar stunts since 2003. She has explained: “I don’t yarn bomb, I make art.”…“If someone calls my bull a yarn bomb, I get really upset.”
For a creative array of the projects people have undertaken over the years, just google image “yarn bombing” and prepare to be amazed.
loudstreets 