Knitting stunt leaves Taylor Square in stitches
- Author:
- Angus Thompson
- Posted:
- Thursday, 13 August 2009
First it was a tank in Denmark, then a petrol station in New York State before a bus in Mexico was also hit. Now the men’s toilets in Taylor Square have become the latest target of guerrilla knitting attacks around the world.
Last Saturday local ‘graffiti knitter’ Denise Litchfield set out to cover the above-ground surrounds of the former Men’s Convenience public toilets in patches of gold, red and white cotton wool, and even attached a plush condom vending machine to the plythe.
‘The Knitted Convenience’ was staged as part of the Sydney Design 09 festival and is Sydney’s first major outdoor knitting installation.
Ms Litchfield has made her mark on sign poles, parking meters and trees around Newtown but had her sights set on a bigger stunt, originally targeting Ken Unsworth’s ‘Stones Against The Sky (Kings Cross’s affectionately known Poo on Sticks).
“It was great because I had my eyes on a bigger prize – a bit like those little chipmunks from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know, where they jump from the peanut to the Brazil nut to the coconut,” she said.
“I’ve always thought the toilet was a good spot for a lot of reasons, because it’s… generally ignored and it’s quite a beautiful piece of architecture and history, too.”
Ms Litchfield was recently invited to create a major knitting installation out the front of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra with the founder of the global Knitta Please movement, Magda Sayeg.
Ms Litchfield and a cohort of 11 other guerrillas spent the whole of Saturday installing the piece designed to playfully greet locals, tourists and partygoers.
The material from the event will be made into blankets and donated to an inner city charity.
Guerrilla knitter Denise Litchfield gives Taylor Square the soft touch
February 13th, 2010 @ 10:28 am
An extra late but related comment on Crocheting/knitting. I refer you to the film of Charles Dicken’s Novel “A tale of Two Cities”, where, in the latter scenes, the oppressed French population sat around the Guillotine watching their oppressors (in their case the Monarchy who had no Humanity)executed while the population knitted and operated toy guillotines. In our presnt Era, there is an extrordinarily greedy group of people who really have little idea how much their actions are hated by the Majority of the Population or, if they are, they certainly don’t care. I suspect that, if say 100,000 people were to turn up outside their “Castles”, clicking needles (or knitting/crocheting – hopefully a practical use could be made for same) or using model Guillotines, this ENTIRELY PEACEFUL protest might give them cause to reflect on why France is a Republic. But the’re probably too busy Gambling with other peoples money to care!