Principal Investigator
Dr Susan Jones
Project funder
The British Academy
Video about the project and workshops
Background
Although knitting is a popular everyday creative practice, its significance for meaning making in contemporary lives has not been fully recognised. The value of textile practice in meaning making has been overshadowed by narrow models of literacy which dominate formal education and public life and stereotypical views of amateur crafts have also meant that the significance of knitting as a creative resource for meaning making has been overlooked. Recent research by Dr Susan Jones has sought to build on the rich conceptual connections between text and textile through a series of interviews with crafters. ‘Knit and Matter’ seeks to develop this further through a focus on material meaning making, through means which engage with the process of making itself.
A lack of recognition of the role of everyday creative practice has wide-ranging symbolic and practical implications for individuals, communities and for wider society, and these implications need to be better understood. As we face global crises and consider our response to these, it is timely to seek better understanding of the role of everyday practice in addressing some of the most troubling questions we face, not least how we recognise and respect our material relationship with the world.
The research
The research has two intertwining strands:
- A series of workshops, each with a focus on a different aspect of making with yarn: spinning, dyeing, design and knitting. Workshops will be held at the Framework Knitters Museum in Ruddington, Nottingham. They will be supported by creative professionals with expertise in textile and community education, and will lead to an exhibition of participants’ work at the museum, the focus of which will be co-developed with the participant makers.
- Development of conceptual work alongside makers participating in these workshops. As they follow the process of making from early principles to knitted or crocheted items, participants will consider the factors that contribute to how fibre craft comes to matter for them.
Aims
There are three aims:
To focus on the process of making and how knitting works as a material process for exploring and expressing what matters to makers.
To bring together theoretical concepts from interdisciplinary areas including art and design, philosophy, and anthropology of craft with emerging work in the field of literacy studies, focused specifically on the role of the material in making through knitting.
To generate data through methods which will reflect the engagement of makers with their materials, contributing to understanding of ‘making-with’ as a method in researching everyday creative practice.
The research seeks to answer these questions:
- What matters to knitters as they engage in a series of in-person, collaborative and material making experiences?
- What does a focus on the material process of knitting contribute to disciplinary understanding of everyday meaning making?
- How can knitting as an everyday meaning making activity be better understood through a focus on the material process of making?
Methods will be engaged which will generate a range of data including material artefacts, still and moving image, aural and print-based sources. Participants will contribute their response between workshops through journals and a project blog.