City Bombed with Yarn: Knitting Graffiti as an Ambivalent Practice of Resistance to Cultural Hegemony

Abstract

Street lamp, bench, tree wrapped in a colourful knit, statue with a scarf or embroidered slogan hung on a gate, all constitute knitting graffiti, which is increasingly present in the cities around the world. It takes a lot of forms. It is not only a colourful aesthetic symptom, but also a manifestation and driving force of socio-cultural changes. Knitted and crocheted elements present in the urban landscape only seemingly tend to be frivolous and irrational. Creative actions made by these who ‘knit the city’ embody various meanings. In the presented article, the phenomenon of ‘yarn bombing’ is described primarily as a strategy of resistance, a form of street art, which makes the cultural practice of knitting stitch by stitch, traditionally associated with femininity, become a series of craftivist micro-political gestures.