Many a hipster and trendsetter are knitting these days. Some knit for charity, others knit, it seems, because in post economic recession we’re relearning the long forgotten skill of thrift. Either way, the design wires are taking notice.
However Polish-born, New York-based designer Agata Olek’s creations aren’t knitted as such, but rather crocheted.
Olek crochets everything that enters her space, justifying it as “hour after hour my madness becomes crochet”. She crochets everything that enters her space, from text messages and medical reports to bicycles, televisions, people and found objects.
Her work has been featured in various publications and exhibitions but she’s adamant that her work is not a feminist critique, and bears no relation to the world of craft. Drawing inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades, Olek uses crochet to recycle shapes, forms, spaces and structures.
Olek mostly uses found materials for designs and these can include anything from fabric to twine, video tape and balloons to hair, ribbons, paper, climbing rope and wire. She explains that her work can “be interpreted as a metaphor for the complexity and interconnectedness of the body, its systems and psychology, and in a broader sense, it can represent humanity itself.
