Crochet piece installed

There are a lot of "crochet rooms" in existence.  Keeping this simple in material and color choice makes ours (mine and Stephanie Meredith, as this was a collaborative effort) stand out.  We were trying to convey a sense of taking over and biology and, dare we say, nature, as a powerful force.  Though it may seem that we are destroying it and nature is this fragile entity that needs protection, in reality we exist in a fraction of a second in nature's timeframe.  Yes we have the power to alter it but in doing so we will ultimately destroy ourselves and nature will still prevail.  This is in no way a statement about being eco-friendly or anti-climate-change or anything of the sort, but merely a reflection on the predicament we are in and a criticism of the viewpoint that we are in control of something bigger than us.  (We look at the preservation of the planet and being green as a means to preserve nature in its current state which is a state that we can live in, therefore, we are protecting ourselves.)

 

Other crochet rooms of the past and present speak to feminine space (ie. domestic space) filled with home crafts.  Craft versus art is another conversation, specifically crafting as art when you remove the function or object out of the way and focus in on process.  (This was also a feminist argument because craft historically was the means of which women were artists, in the home, and less frequently through making sellable goods.  This was really the only opportunity to sign their work as well -especially in needle craft.  The objects made needed to serve a purpose, have a function; otherwise the woman would be considered unproductive.)  The web, which is also dubbed feminine since it was used along with the spider by women artists early on, as well as the idea of collecting, cherishing, holding on to things is a more sentimental and therefore feminine motif.

We like these conversations but wanted to move past that to something more specific and science based.  The yarn is a garish form of flesh, and the stitch is a simple chain stitch looping together to create "cells."  The idea started as a model of skin cells and examining and demonstrating that elasticity.  Crochet became the choice of process because it best demonstrated the elasticity, yarn appropriate because it starts from a natural fiber that we have industrialized, processed, and manufactured into something more suitable for our use.  As we started filling the room with the crochet, we went back in and connected pieces together through more crocheting, a labor of several days in itself.