Pushing the Needle: Crafts as Art and Resistance

Writer: Emilia Meenakshi Emmrich
Editor: Cheryl Chen

An association with grandmotherhood, domesticity, and women in general has long excluded needle crafts from the realm of ‘serious art.’ While needle works have certainly always been appreciated and admired, particularly by the people who practice them, there tends to be a line drawn between the world of art galleries and the realm of ‘household chores’ or ‘idle pastimes.’  Knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and other such arts have long been confined to the latter category, as if this association precludes them from being artistic at all. 

However, with more recent feminist movements has come a re-evaluation of needle crafts. Given their ties to women’s domestic labour, the reclamation of needle crafts as forms of artistic and political expression can be a powerful tool of feminist and class-conscious awareness. Quilting, for example, is a historically African American craft and a medium of choice for artists like Faith Ringgold. Ringgold, whose mother and grandmother had been quilters, used ‘story quilts’ to depict family, trauma, and identity in Black communities. Needle crafts’ legacy at the complicated intersections of race, class, and gender are what give it such effectiveness as an activist artistic medium. 

There is also room for resistance and activism in the stereotypical softness of needle crafts, which has lent itself particularly well to subversions of power in anti-war artwork. In 2006, the Danish artist Marianne Jørgensen protested Denmark’s support of the U.S. invasion in Iraq through crowdsourcing 4000 knitted pink squares, which she then quilted onto an old tank. The femininity associated with knitted work, only heightened through the colour pink, aesthetically envelops the harshness of the tank and disrupts the militaristic representation of blowing things up as an ultimate source of power. 

At the same time, it would be remiss to ignore the physical, practical uses of needle craft, which are an equally effective tool of social change. Knitting and crocheting, at the end of the day, are artforms meant to clothe people, and if access to warm clothing falls along lines of class and privilege, the creation of clothing simply for the sake of clothing people is a political act. Marginalized communities, such as queer and Indigenous people, are unhoused at disproportionate rates, and while needle crafts should not be taken as solutions to systemic issues, their distribution is a small step towards alleviating inequity. For example, Knit the Rainbow in the United States brings awareness to the housing crisis by knitting winter clothing for unhoused LGBTQ+ youth. 

Here at Havergal, the organization Knit for Change forms a part of this tapestry of needle craft as activist art. Jessica Lee, who runs Knit for Change at Havergal, describes the project as “a youth-led nonprofit organization that collaborates with knitters/crocheters of any skill level of experience to create and donate winter accessories to those who need them and/or are experiencing homelessness.” While the program is called ‘Knit for Change,’ Jess wants to showcase the “unlimited creativity” of needle arts, as she encourages students to “create any item they want for winter accessories, ranging from a scarf to warm, cozy sweaters.” Jess emphasizes how the change which she is trying to create can’t be limited to one specific social, environmental, or personal ideal, but lies at the intersections of these fields. “Through Knit for Change,” she tells me, “we also want to create a helpful incentive for people to learn to crochet or knit because it is something that they can put to good use in the future, whether it be making items for those who need or making their own clothes to become more sustainable.” Jess, through her care and craft, is encouraging young people to take up their needles as a catalyst for change, and like generations of crafters before her, she is pushing the needle on what art and activism can be.