STITCH FOR SENATE

STITCH FOR SENATE

Stitch for Senate was an initiative of knit hobbyists from 2007-2008. American craft hobbyists hand knit helmet liners for every United States Senator. Building on the history of wartime knitting, a practice dating back to the American Revolution, Stitch for Senate used the tradition of political organizing within knitting circles as a space for discussion, skillsharing and protest in the lead up to the 2008 senate elections. Hobbyists knitted to persuade elected officials to support the troops by bringing them home. Every senator received their own helmet liner, mailed on President Obama's Inaguration. See response from Senators HERE.

EVENTS | LECTURES

Stitch for Senate was presented at workshops, events and artist lectures. Eventually the Senators response to receiving a helmet liner was exhibited in the form of letters and knitted objects at art venues. Some of those venues included:

September 9, 2009 - January 17, 2010
Craftwerk 2.0
Jönköpings läns Museum
Jönköpings, Sweden

June 5, 2009
Craftivism Interchange
Textile Museum, Toronto, Canada

Oct 24, 2008 Making Craft Matter: Feminism And Politics In Handmade Art
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Panel: Julia Bryan-Wilson, Liz Collins, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Cat Mazza, Allison Smith Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Sep 5 - Nov 1, 2008
Political Circus Art Exhibition
Ritter Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

Oct 11, 2008
Vote Early Vote Often
The Change You Want To See, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Jan 26, 2008 Crafting Protest
The New School for Social Reasearch, NY, NY
event archived here and here

Jan 17, 2008 - Jan 2009
Take Action!a>
Museum of World Culture, Göteborg, Sweden

Feb 24, 2007
Stitch for Senate NYC Grassroots Media Coalition Conference
The New School for Social Reasearch, NY, NY

Jan 14, 2007
Open Node
Three Walls Gallery, Chicago, IL

Jan 12, 2007 - Feb 10, 2007
Knit For Defense
Three Walls Gallery, Chicago, IL

PRESS | PUBLICATIONS
Interview on We Make Money Not Art
Crafting Political Messages by Colleen O'Connor in the Denver Post
'Activists Use Knitting Needles to Make Their Point', in Columbia News Service by Neha Singh Gohil
KnitKnit 7 Stitch for Senate

SUPPORT AND CREDITS

This project is created by Cat Mazza
With support from Experimental Television Center.

Research for this project will be collected for Knit for Defense an experimental animation about the history of American wartime knitting, funded by Creative Capital.

Special thanks: Jamison McCorrison, Jim Finn, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Three Walls Gallery, Cleve E. Carney

CONTACT

catmazza * / a t / * gmail * / d o t / com