Towards a politics of whimsy: yarn bombing the city

Abstract

Whimsy describes the capricious, playful and fanciful, and designates something irrational or without an immediately obvious reason to exist. I argue that this frivolity and illogicality are precisely what can make whimsy a significant, if fleeting, ground for micro‐political change. To demonstrate this claim I use the example of yarn bombing – a contemporary form of street art in which knitted and crocheted items are attached to parts of the urban landscape. Yarn bombing, I argue, does more than feminise the city, for the whimsy with which it is imbued has the capacity to increase our attentiveness to habitual worlds in a series of micro‐political gestures. Yet it is impossible to fully recognise and harness a politics of whimsy, for doing so defies its character as frivolous and without motive, and supersedes these traits with intentionality and utility. As a result, a politics born of whimsy is always‐already a paradoxical politics. The broader question thus becomes one of how to dwell in whimsy's ungraspable moment in order that we might remain open to new political and ethical potentialities. To explore these issues, this paper draws on performative ethnographic fieldwork, wherein 30 yarn bombs were made and displayed in the city of Bristol during 2011.

Planting the seeds of a quiet activism

“…In a different context, the quietly politicised character of creative practice is explored in Hackney's (, 169) discussion of ‘quiet activism’, which examines amateur crafting as a medium for ‘socially engaged’ activist praxis. Recent interest in craft within geography has seen researchers studying dressmaking (Hall and Jayne ) and knitting (Mann ; Price ) to micro‐breweries (Thurnell Read ). Insight derived from this work illuminates the affective, emotional and embodied dimensions of ‘making’ as it intersects with social, environmental and political action and critique.…”

“…). Seed savers’ voices highlight the particular power of small and quiet acts of making and doing to critique, subvert and go under‐the‐radar as a result of their fragile, partial and ephemeral qualities (Mann ). The metaphor of self‐seeding (allowing a plant to set and scatter seed, producing new plants with minimal human interference) was not a metaphor verbalised directly by participants.…”

“…Although quiet acts might seed something bigger, and can be marshalled and spoken (if momentarily) more loudly, this is not the only reason they count (Horton and Kraftl 2009;Martin et al 2007). Seed savers' voices highlight the particular power of small and quiet acts of making and doing to critique, subvert and go under-the-radar as a result of their fragile, partial and ephemeral qualities (Mann 2015). The metaphor of self-seeding (allowing a plant to set and scatter seed, producing new plants with minimal human interference) was not a metaphor verbalised directly by participants.…”

“…It finds gardeners frequently explain their relationships with seeds and plants as a 'quiet', 'gentle', 'slow-cook', 'dirt under the fingernails' kind of activism that gains strength from its subversive nature, embodied quietness and commitment to practical action. This discussion of 'quiet activism' contributes to on-going debates within this journal that refine geographers' approaches to research in gardens (Pitt 2015) and that theorise the nature of contemporary politics performed through gently subversive, interpersonal or creative acts (Askins 2014;Mann 2015).…”

Creative processes: From interventions in art to intervallic experiments through Bergson

“…In the last decade cultural geographers have become increasingly engaged with creative research, both in terms of a direct engagement with artists and their work (Engelmann, 2015;Foster and Lorimer, 2007;Hawkins, 2010;Jellis, 2015;Lapworth, 2015), as well as through a turn to artistic techniques and skilled practices (Butler, 2006;Mann, 2015;Patchett, 2014;Yusoff, 2007). What this trend enables most powerfully is a mode of enquiry into the way artistic products and practices can help geographers to frame and think about the world differently -whether this difference be in terms of an alternative political critique (Yusoff, 2007), the endorsement of embodied practices in academia (Lorimer and Wylie, 2010), or through an awareness of non-human and material agencies (Lapworth, 2015).…”