Creating Digital Materiality: Third-Wave Feminism, Public Art, and Yarn Bombing

Abstract Projects drawing upon Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture and its relationship to third-wave feminism and post-feminism have received scant scholarly attention so far. Socially-engaged artists that employ DIY strategies, such as yarn bombing, rely on digital communities of like-minded people, mainly women, to bring attention to socially important issues such as gun control or use of contraceptives. Politic and civic actions involving public textile art projects are often considered explicitly feminist and therefore do not require additional examination, attention, and analysis vis-a-vis feminist ideas. My research looks at the intersections between the digital communities created through practice of DIY, such as www.countercraft.org and various versions of feminism that members of the DIY and digital communities adhere to. It looks at how these communities utilize implicitly or explicitly understood feminisms (plural is intentional) and empowerment while practicing craft techniques that are traditionally considered part of patriarchal society and thus presumably contributing to the disenfranchising of women. In addition, I look at how DIY-related websites, blogs, and discussion groups involve women in the political realm through use of seemingly traditional and apolitical techniques of knitting, sewing, crocheting, etc. Using contemporary feminist scholarship, and scholarship on digital communities, I argue that women use fiber-based materials to mitigate what they perceive to be a radical position of the social protesters. Yarn bombing and other public actions that involve needlework became popular in the early millennium due to the nature of third-wave feminism which aims to both empower women and negotiate femininity as an acceptable social standard.Key words: Third-Wave Feminism, Yarn Bombing, Knitting, Online communities, Participatory CultureColor versions of the images in this article can be found at www.pioneeramerica.org/ mccolor images, html.IntroductionIn 2005 Magda Sayeg attached a of blue and pink hand-knit acrylic fabric to the outside of a door in Houston, Texas. It was a small handle cozy that has since become known as the alpha piece because it is believed to be the first sample of yarn graffiti (Moore and Prain 2010). According to Sayeg, this handle cover, along with other small pieces placed on a pole in her Houston neighbourhood, elicited so much interest from passersby that she decided to continue with similar projects. That year, Sayeg and several other artists/knitters formed a group called Knitta1 whose main goal was to place yarn graffiti in various public places (Sayeg 2012). Two years later, an artist duo Jafagirls2 started their yarn bombing practice. Since 2007, the group has completed projects not only in their native Yellow Springs, Ohio, but also in several other cities in the eastern United States and one project in Taiwan. Their first project, the Knit Knot Tree, drew international attention for its playful, colorful, and overtly feminine imagery, which incorporated Barbie dolls and flowers. Their work often bears tags such as, Anyone who stands for tolerance and love or Everyday heroes (Figure 1). Jafagirls pride themselves on their ability to recycle yarn, the fact that the trees or poles that they 'dress up' are never damaged, and that their actions are loved and respected by the community to such an extent that even a policeman in Yellow Springs helps to organize yarn bombings (Bayraktaroglu n.d.). Eight years later, in 2013, Visual Arts students from University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario bombed their local university art gallery as part of the upcoming exhibition, The Secret Stash (Petkovic 2013). Using scrap yarn and donated needles, the students created squares of different sizes to make a gigantic cover for the trees around the gallery.These public art projects bring yarn and textiles outside of the traditional textile-producing spaces such as small factories or domestic interiors. …

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