Urban knitting

Urban Knitting

Urban Knitting is also known as Guerilla Knitting, Radical Stitching, Yarn bombing or Knit Graffiti, but it’s mainly called Urban or Guerilla Knitting.

The word Urban Knitting is a composition of the Spanish word “guerrilla”, which means “little war” and the word knitting. So the term itself also gives a hint on the intention of this type of street art.  War always includes the wish to change something and it’s called little war because compared to other forms of street art like graffiti, it’s not that aggressive and quite smooth.

The most important advantages according to this form of art are that Urban Knitting is non-permanent, so it can be easily removed if it’s necessary and knitting is also simple to learn and to produce. Never the less, the practice is still illegal.

Guerilla Knitters mainly want to beautify public places and it’s also about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public locations. Sometimes their works can contain a symbolic meaning, a political expression or they want to cause irritation in order to make people think about it.

A great example for Urban Knittings with a political expression is the “pink m 24 chaffee” by Marianne Jorgensen.  It shows a real life combat tank from the Second Worldwar. By covering the tank with about 79m² of pink wool, she wants to provoke and to protest against the war in Iraq.

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In regard to history, the practice is believed to have originated in the US with knitters in Texas who tried to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects. But actually the start of this movement has been attributed to the 37 year old Magda Sayeg. Since this time Urban knitting has developed with knitting and crocheting groups worldwide, especially in America, England and Spain.

Furthermore, Joann Matvichuk found the International Yarnbombing Day, which is since then celebrated every year. There are also several books about this type of street art, like “Yarnbombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti, a self published catalogue of an exhibition held at the 18 ^th street arts complex in Santa Monica and even series like “2 broke girls” and “Rote Rosen” feature Urban Knitting.