Creative Capital

Description

Knit for Defense is an animation at the intersection of craft, labor and combat, exploring the aesthetics of war in film through an experimental visualization of knit stitches. Knitting garments for combat troops was popularized during World War II as a domestic effort, which activated knitting circles into a feminized labor force. Knit for Defense is created from archival footage and historical artifacts, sounds from knitting machines, and textile processes, threading together footage from World War II, Vietnam, and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when wartime knitting was in practice. Knit motifs of tanks, planes, ships and drones animate a cinema of combat, reflecting on war from a pixelated distance.