May 11, 2006
MASSIVE KNIT @ Washington Square Park
Honoring Jane Jacobs
MASSIVE KNIT: A Knitting Mob Dedicated to the Memory of Jane Jacobs: Tuesday, May 23rd 5:30pm in Washington Square Park, NYC.
"To use parks and squares and public buildings as part of this street fabric; use them to intensify and knit together the fabric's complexity and multiple use." From "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs
EVENT We would like to provide a collective, connected, community of individuals to honor the late Jane Jacobs who passed away on April 25, 2006. Jane Jacobs was an activist, a community leader, a writer, an urban planner, and a hero to many people. One of her great feats was as the chairman of the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. This expressway would have run through Washington Square Park. We plan to gather in this park on the 23rd of May to memorialize her and her ideas. We want to convene as a community in a loving and subtle way, honoring the park as well as her memory. We plan to do this by knitting the park together.
Knitting is a solitary art form, often resulting in gifts for others. A knitting circle allows one to be social with this solitary art. A city, likewise, is a solitary place to live. There is so much crowding and destination in daily life that one often gets lost in their own world. Parks allow people to come together and be alone peacefully in their solitary life and form temporary and permanent communities. Parks and knitting circles are both public and accessible: but private enough that one can have meaningful communication and a community within their confines.
Using individual sensibilities, we plan to create an open structure in the park. Connecting various elements of the park together such as trees, benches and other structures, we will connect a community and a memory. As people enter the park (the meeting spot is under the arch) they will be directed to a spot in the park to start knitting. People can arrive anytime starting at 5.30 p.m. and stay as long as they like. They should tie, knit, string together long thin pieces of material, and before leaving, tie the material off to a piece of the park, or another individual yarn. By the end of the evening we should have a string of material connecting the park together. We will have connected to the park and to the other individuals as a community.
Posted by jo at May 11, 2006 09:54 AM
