A New Fashion: Dressing Up the Cities

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the urban knitting movement, a worldwide phenomenon that tries to combine a domestic activity, street or folk art, the reshaping of do-it-yourself culture, and peaceful forms of urban guerrilla protest. The activists employ colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth to enhance, beautify, personalize, and gentrify abandoned public places. Furthermore, they use the Internet to share knowledge on techniques and experiences, to organize collective actions, and to record and document their artistic installations. This article is focused on an urban knitting project realized in L'Aquila (Italy) three years after the 2009 earthquake. It was called “Mettiamoci una pezza” (“Let's Patch It”). The main aim of this project was to “dress up” the main square of the city, covering the gray metal barricades that still block off citizens from some areas of downtown and adding a sprinkle of color and warmth to the devastated city. We studied this movement in an ethnographic way, by applying a qualitative content analysis of the online materials and nonparticipatory observation of this event in L'Aquila in order to investigate what the collective action did both practically and symbolically. Our research shows how the movement was able to promote a very complex and meaningful political initiative.