Monday, October 3, 2011

Urban Knitting in Zurich



Using the slogan "Wool in the City" a bunch of creative people treated the city of Zurich to a new type of friendly graffiti this weekend – Urban Knitting.  Ignoring warnings from the police, teams of knitters hung their works from lampposts, sculptures, park benches, even fire hydrants, in what must be one of the most inoffensive mass illegal actions ever.  The phenomenon started in Austin, Texas in 2005 and has since spread to the likes of New York and Berlin.  Unlike traditional graffiti it causes no damage at all.


10 comments:

  1. Hello:
    What fun! How amusing to find one's city clothed overnight in these brightly knitted confections. We hope that Budapest will be targeted........some of the more severe Magyars could do with some light relief!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope urban knitting will soon arrive in Budapest.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this article Paul! I am about to take up knitting again and this has given me fresh inspiration!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You wrote: " Ignoring warnings from the police, teams of knitters hung their works from lampposts, sculptures, park benches, even fire hydrants, in what must be one of the most inoffensive mass illegal actions ever." When I read this last week, I thought you were joking about _police_ and _mass illegal actions_. Or at least exaggerating.

    But we have just had Occupy Melbourne, a mass rally to protest corporate greed, based on Occupy Wall St. Noone was blocking traffic, noone was blocking workers from getting to their offices and the trams went about their normal city routes. Yet 400 police came out in riot gear, in tightly packed lines, accompanied by horses and dogs. It was hideous.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The police did issue a warning to the knitters, but did not intervene. We had our own "Occupy Paradeplatz" in Zurich last week. For two days the Paradeplatz, home to the headquarters of the two largest Swiss Banks, the UBS and the Credit Suisse, (where many of the world's dictators keep their stolen money and where many corporate leaders and gangsters keep their dirty money)was occupied. The occupation passed without incident. More are planned.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very creative indeed! This just gave me the inspiration to get some cool knits in the saba fashion online store.

    ReplyDelete