Through rows and in stitches – entangled a sweater as (an) archive

Abstract

This thesis explores how words might be more like art and how art might become more about artfulness. It grapples with my own relationship with words and their seemingly static, readable, and conclusionary nature, against the elusive, multiple nature of art and making. It considers the place and use of both these practices in academia and everyday life. To do this, the thesis takes the shape of and examines research-creation practice within a Canadian context, using the process-centric craft of hand knitting a sweater to explore how feminist materialism and the anarchive might offer me ways to resist or refuse the value and static notion of capture often granted to words.<br> Beginning in June 2022, early in Halifax’s short summer season, this thesis follows my process hand knitting a sweater as I went about my daily life, and records, through autotheoretical and an archival practice, some of the (un)usual traces this process created. It asks the question: how can hand knitting a sweater be both an an archive and a knowledge making practice?”