Yarn bombing (or yarnbombing) is a type of
graffiti or
street art that employs colourful displays of
knitted or
crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting.
Motivation
While other forms of graffiti may be
expressive,
decorative,
territorial,
socio-political commentary,
advertising or
vandalism, yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places.[1] It has since developed with groups graffiti knitting and crocheting worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects being run.[2]
According to Manuela Farinosi and Leopoldina Fortunati, yarn bombing has become synonymous with the current
feminist movement due in part to the reclamation of the traditionally feminine arts of
knitting and/or
crocheting to partake in the traditionally masculine and male-dominated graffiti scene.[3] The women and girls who make up the yarn bombing subculture are diverse in race, age, sexuality, class, etc., and create space for themselves and their art everywhere from college campuses to public parks. This creation and preservation of space is what motivates some of the participants, some of whom have never been able to access a political art space before. In her article about yarn bombing, Joanna Mann explains the balance between the art and politics, "Yarn bombing, I argue, does more than feminise the city, for the whimsy with which it is imbued has the capacity to increase our attentiveness to habitual worlds in a series of micro-political gestures."[4] McGovern finds that yarn bombing may also be used to contradict the idea of women as homemaker by bringing such traditionally feminine art into public space.[5]
History
The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S. with Texas knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects, but it has since spread worldwide.[6][1][7]
The start of this movement has been attributed to
Magda Sayeg, from Houston, who says she first got the idea in 2005 when she covered the door handle of her boutique with a custom-made cozy.[8]
Houston artist Bill Davenport was creating and exhibiting crochet-covered objects in Houston in the 1990s, and the Houston Press stated that "Bill Davenport could be called the grand old man of Houston crocheted sculpture."[9] Artist Shanon Schollian was knitting stump
cozies in 2002 for
clear cuts in Oregon.[10] The Knit Knot Tree by the Jafagirls[11] in
Yellow Springs, Ohio, gained international attention in 2008.
The movement moved on from simple 'cozies' with the innovation of the 'stitched story'. The concept has been attributed to
Lauren O'Farrell[12] (who creates her street art under the graffiti knitting name Deadly Knitshade), from London, UK, who founded the city's first graffiti knitting collective
Knit the City. The 'stitched story concept' uses handmade
amigurumi creatures, characters, and items to tell a narrative or show a theme. This was first recorded with the Knit the City collective's "Web of Woe" installation[13] in August 2009.
The Knit the City collective were also the first to use O'Farrell's term yarnstorming to describe their graffiti knitting, as an alternative to the more popular term yarnbombing.[14][15]
Yarn bombing's popularity has spread throughout the world. In Oklahoma City the Collected Thread store yarn bombed the Plaza District of the city on 9 September 2011 to celebrate their three-year anniversary as a functioning shop.[16] and in Australia a group called the Twilight Taggers refer to themselves as 'fibre artists'.[17] Joann Matvichuk of
Lethbridge, Alberta founded
International Yarnbombing Day, which was first observed on 11 June 2011.[18]
Although yarnbomb installations are typically found in
urban areas,
Stephen Duneier, aka Yarnbomber, was the first to introduce it into the wilderness with numerous permitted projects in
Los Padres National Forest beginning in 2012.[19]
The Craft Club Yarnbombers (Emma Curley, Helen Thomas, Gabby Atkins, Claire Whitehead and Rebecca Burton) in
Essex became Guinness World Record holders in 2014 for the largest display of crochet sculptures, when they yarnbombed a children's hospice with 13,388 crocheted items.[20] (The record has since been broken, in 2018 by a feminist crochet group based in India.[21]) That December, they brought yarnbombing to their community with their postbox yarnbombs.[22]
Yarn Bombing Los Angeles (YBLA) is a yarn bombing collective located in Los Angeles, California. The collective describe themselves as a group of guerrilla knitters who have been collaborating since 2010. They hold monthly meetings to develop plans for events, share techniques, develop their collective community, etc. They currently have 10+ projects in progress throughout the Los Angeles and nearby communities.[23]
In
Inverclyde, "The Wee Crafty Yarnbombers"
bollard covers in 2019 were followed by pillarbox yarnbombing by FiddlieDee Crafts[24] in the 2020 festive season.[25]
In February 2024, activists in
Montrose, Texas protested city plans to remove mature oak trees lining Montrose Boulevard by wrapping the trees in knitted and crocheted yarn graffiti.[26]
Legality
While yarn
installations – called yarn bombs or yarnstorms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of
graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. Nonetheless, the practice is still technically illegal in some jurisdictions, though it is not often prosecuted vigorously.[6]
Alyce McGovern highlights that a possible reason for this is that yarn bombing is often done by white, middle-class, women and it is seen as harmless fun; it is deemed more as street art and less as graffiti (which is enforced much more strictly).[27]
Criticisms
Yarn bombing has been under some scrutiny for the potential negative environmental impact that the yarn can have when placed on plant life. Yarn can restrict sap production on trees and constrict growth.[28] The knitted material requires removal and cleaning up; if left behind, installations become soggy and synthetic fibers litter the environment.[29]
The street artist
Olek (Agata Oleksiak) has yarn bombed New York City icons such as the
Wall Street bull and the
Astor Place Cube.[30] They faced legal trouble after their unauthorized installation in an underwater museum allegedly damaged marine life, the very cause they were attempting to raise awareness for.[31] Olek also makes public statements with their work, such as blanketing a women's
homeless shelter in
Delhi in 2015[32] or installing an underwater cozy at the
Cancun Underwater Museum.[31]
By demonstrating on yarnbombed tricycles, the Knit Your Revolt Tricycle Gang in
Queensland protests "anti-bikie" laws that outlaw motorcycle gangs.[33]
Advertising campaigns have capitalized on the yarnbombing trend:
Knit the City was commissioned by
Toyota to create a 2013 installation in London.[34]London Kaye creates yarnbomb graffiti and, in addition to her art installations, creates advertisement yarnbombs for brands like
Valentino and
Miller Lite.[35][30] Kaye has received backlash for her installations when they are hung in public unauthorized, and one installation in
Bushwick called "Moonshine Kingdom" was met with arguments that spray graffiti is prosecuted as illicit, while white trendy yarn graffiti is not criminalized.[36] Public outcry concerning the installation labeled this type of graffiti a symbol of gentrification,[36] although an article by The
New York Times claims a double standard in criticism of yarnbombing, and that women's work is seen as "cutesy" and inherently less valuable.[35]
^"Largest display of crochet sculptures". Guinness World Records. 1 February 2016.
Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2021. The largest display of crochet sculptures consists of 13,388 crocheted sculptures and was achieved by The Craft Club (UK) in Thundersley, Essex, UK, on 24 August 2014.
Moore, Mandy and Pain, Leanne, Yarn Bombing, the Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti,
Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver 2009,
ISBN978-1-55152-255-5 - also in German (2011)
Langreiter, Nikola (2012), "Neues Handarbeiten – Radical? Revolutionary? Guerilla?", in Hannes Obermair; et al. (eds.), Regionale Zivilgesellschaft in Bewegung - Cittadini innanzi tutto, Vienna-Bolzano: Folio Verlag, pp. 183–204,
ISBN978-3-85256-618-4
Yarn bombing (or yarnbombing) is a type of
graffiti or
street art that employs colourful displays of
knitted or
crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting.
Motivation
While other forms of graffiti may be
expressive,
decorative,
territorial,
socio-political commentary,
advertising or
vandalism, yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places.[1] It has since developed with groups graffiti knitting and crocheting worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects being run.[2]
According to Manuela Farinosi and Leopoldina Fortunati, yarn bombing has become synonymous with the current
feminist movement due in part to the reclamation of the traditionally feminine arts of
knitting and/or
crocheting to partake in the traditionally masculine and male-dominated graffiti scene.[3] The women and girls who make up the yarn bombing subculture are diverse in race, age, sexuality, class, etc., and create space for themselves and their art everywhere from college campuses to public parks. This creation and preservation of space is what motivates some of the participants, some of whom have never been able to access a political art space before. In her article about yarn bombing, Joanna Mann explains the balance between the art and politics, "Yarn bombing, I argue, does more than feminise the city, for the whimsy with which it is imbued has the capacity to increase our attentiveness to habitual worlds in a series of micro-political gestures."[4] McGovern finds that yarn bombing may also be used to contradict the idea of women as homemaker by bringing such traditionally feminine art into public space.[5]
History
The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S. with Texas knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects, but it has since spread worldwide.[6][1][7]
The start of this movement has been attributed to
Magda Sayeg, from Houston, who says she first got the idea in 2005 when she covered the door handle of her boutique with a custom-made cozy.[8]
Houston artist Bill Davenport was creating and exhibiting crochet-covered objects in Houston in the 1990s, and the Houston Press stated that "Bill Davenport could be called the grand old man of Houston crocheted sculpture."[9] Artist Shanon Schollian was knitting stump
cozies in 2002 for
clear cuts in Oregon.[10] The Knit Knot Tree by the Jafagirls[11] in
Yellow Springs, Ohio, gained international attention in 2008.
The movement moved on from simple 'cozies' with the innovation of the 'stitched story'. The concept has been attributed to
Lauren O'Farrell[12] (who creates her street art under the graffiti knitting name Deadly Knitshade), from London, UK, who founded the city's first graffiti knitting collective
Knit the City. The 'stitched story concept' uses handmade
amigurumi creatures, characters, and items to tell a narrative or show a theme. This was first recorded with the Knit the City collective's "Web of Woe" installation[13] in August 2009.
The Knit the City collective were also the first to use O'Farrell's term yarnstorming to describe their graffiti knitting, as an alternative to the more popular term yarnbombing.[14][15]
Yarn bombing's popularity has spread throughout the world. In Oklahoma City the Collected Thread store yarn bombed the Plaza District of the city on 9 September 2011 to celebrate their three-year anniversary as a functioning shop.[16] and in Australia a group called the Twilight Taggers refer to themselves as 'fibre artists'.[17] Joann Matvichuk of
Lethbridge, Alberta founded
International Yarnbombing Day, which was first observed on 11 June 2011.[18]
Although yarnbomb installations are typically found in
urban areas,
Stephen Duneier, aka Yarnbomber, was the first to introduce it into the wilderness with numerous permitted projects in
Los Padres National Forest beginning in 2012.[19]
The Craft Club Yarnbombers (Emma Curley, Helen Thomas, Gabby Atkins, Claire Whitehead and Rebecca Burton) in
Essex became Guinness World Record holders in 2014 for the largest display of crochet sculptures, when they yarnbombed a children's hospice with 13,388 crocheted items.[20] (The record has since been broken, in 2018 by a feminist crochet group based in India.[21]) That December, they brought yarnbombing to their community with their postbox yarnbombs.[22]
Yarn Bombing Los Angeles (YBLA) is a yarn bombing collective located in Los Angeles, California. The collective describe themselves as a group of guerrilla knitters who have been collaborating since 2010. They hold monthly meetings to develop plans for events, share techniques, develop their collective community, etc. They currently have 10+ projects in progress throughout the Los Angeles and nearby communities.[23]
In
Inverclyde, "The Wee Crafty Yarnbombers"
bollard covers in 2019 were followed by pillarbox yarnbombing by FiddlieDee Crafts[24] in the 2020 festive season.[25]
In February 2024, activists in
Montrose, Texas protested city plans to remove mature oak trees lining Montrose Boulevard by wrapping the trees in knitted and crocheted yarn graffiti.[26]
Legality
While yarn
installations – called yarn bombs or yarnstorms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of
graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. Nonetheless, the practice is still technically illegal in some jurisdictions, though it is not often prosecuted vigorously.[6]
Alyce McGovern highlights that a possible reason for this is that yarn bombing is often done by white, middle-class, women and it is seen as harmless fun; it is deemed more as street art and less as graffiti (which is enforced much more strictly).[27]
Criticisms
Yarn bombing has been under some scrutiny for the potential negative environmental impact that the yarn can have when placed on plant life. Yarn can restrict sap production on trees and constrict growth.[28] The knitted material requires removal and cleaning up; if left behind, installations become soggy and synthetic fibers litter the environment.[29]
The street artist
Olek (Agata Oleksiak) has yarn bombed New York City icons such as the
Wall Street bull and the
Astor Place Cube.[30] They faced legal trouble after their unauthorized installation in an underwater museum allegedly damaged marine life, the very cause they were attempting to raise awareness for.[31] Olek also makes public statements with their work, such as blanketing a women's
homeless shelter in
Delhi in 2015[32] or installing an underwater cozy at the
Cancun Underwater Museum.[31]
By demonstrating on yarnbombed tricycles, the Knit Your Revolt Tricycle Gang in
Queensland protests "anti-bikie" laws that outlaw motorcycle gangs.[33]
Advertising campaigns have capitalized on the yarnbombing trend:
Knit the City was commissioned by
Toyota to create a 2013 installation in London.[34]London Kaye creates yarnbomb graffiti and, in addition to her art installations, creates advertisement yarnbombs for brands like
Valentino and
Miller Lite.[35][30] Kaye has received backlash for her installations when they are hung in public unauthorized, and one installation in
Bushwick called "Moonshine Kingdom" was met with arguments that spray graffiti is prosecuted as illicit, while white trendy yarn graffiti is not criminalized.[36] Public outcry concerning the installation labeled this type of graffiti a symbol of gentrification,[36] although an article by The
New York Times claims a double standard in criticism of yarnbombing, and that women's work is seen as "cutesy" and inherently less valuable.[35]
^"Largest display of crochet sculptures". Guinness World Records. 1 February 2016.
Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2021. The largest display of crochet sculptures consists of 13,388 crocheted sculptures and was achieved by The Craft Club (UK) in Thundersley, Essex, UK, on 24 August 2014.
Moore, Mandy and Pain, Leanne, Yarn Bombing, the Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti,
Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver 2009,
ISBN978-1-55152-255-5 - also in German (2011)
Langreiter, Nikola (2012), "Neues Handarbeiten – Radical? Revolutionary? Guerilla?", in Hannes Obermair; et al. (eds.), Regionale Zivilgesellschaft in Bewegung - Cittadini innanzi tutto, Vienna-Bolzano: Folio Verlag, pp. 183–204,
ISBN978-3-85256-618-4