Knitting and crocheting - anyone who thinks that these are out of style couldn't be more wrong. Here's a look at some of the Polish artists who have joined the world's trend and taken the old tradition to the streets, literally. Knitting as a street art? No way you say. So let's have a look at what it’s all about.



Over the last few years, a practice called yarn bombing - the use of knitted or crocheted cloth to modify and beautify one's surroundings - emerged in the US and has spread worldwide. Yarn bombers have been seen targeting existing pieces of graffiti for beautification. More often than ever, residents in many cities around the world have awoken to find knitted cozies hugging tree branches, sign poles or local monuments, which gain attention anew.

While yarn installations – called yarn bombs or yarn storms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. So while other forms of graffiti may be expressive, or territorial, and often categorized as vandalism, yarn bombing seems initially to be about reclaiming, personalising and beautifying public places. It has since developed with groups knitting and crocheting graffiti worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects.

Olek

Agata Oleksiak, otherwise known as Crocheted Olek, is a Polish-born artist living in the United States. According to the artist, she treats her work outside of the yarn bomb movement and she feels that her art explores sexuality, feminist ideals and the evolution of communication through colours, conceptual exploration and meticulous detail. With the old-fashioned technique of crocheting, she has used the ephemeral medium of yarn to express everyday occurrences and inspirations hoping to create a metaphor for the complexity and interconnectedness of our body and psychological processes.

One of Olek's recognisable traits is the bursts of bright colours which often mask political and cultural critiques woven into the fibers of her installations, mirroring her respect for artists and writers. She highlights that which already exists in the current time and environment. Her transformation of public spaces and objects reflects cultural evolution, mirroring the public response, from those watching and from those within the art community.

The artist explains:

My work changes from place to place. I studied the science of culture. With a miner’s work ethic, I long to delve deeper and deeper into my investigations. My art was a development that took me away from industrial, close-minded Silesia, Poland. It has always sought to bring color and life, energy, and surprise to the living space. My goal is to produce new work and share it with the public.

Her intention is clear, and like other artist in today's world working in other mediums, her imperative is to give feedback to the economic and social reality in their community.

Julita Wójcik

Another Polish artist who has strongly worked with her community's response to the world of today is Gdańsk's own Julita Wójcik, better known for her Warsaw Rainbow installation that fired up the public's attention last year. For those of you who have not heard of the events surrounding the piece, the work, a giant rainbow made of artificial flowers was meant to serve as a symbol of peace and tolerance for Polish and European society, unfortunately some didn't see it the same way and the installation became a source of frustration for certain groups in the community who vandalised the piece on several occasions by setting it on fire. To read more about the vandalisation of this piece and the public debate around it, see our article Seven Questions About Poland's Most Divisive Artwork.

Before Rainbow, however, Wójcik took to the art of crochet and adopted it as a critique of its supposedly intrinsically feminine character. She created several crocheted sculptures and wall pieces depicting communist era prefab buildings. Her piece titled Falowiec (Waver), pictured above, is the most frequently loanded out piece of the collection of of the Zachęta National Art Gallery in Warsaw.

Inspiration, however, does not mean affirmation, and Wójcik often engages in criticism of an everyday environment, by introducing an element of irony, playing with scale, surprising material illusions, or reworking a concrete legacy into a knitted form, as if commenting ironically on the monumentality of architecture, in this case. It is no wonder that she has also been called the "chronicler of provincial home aesthetics".

Monomoka