Textiles, Community and Controversy: The Knitting Map

Taking a major textile artwork, the Knitting Map, as a central case study, this book interrogates the social, philosophical and critical issues surrounding contemporary textile art today. It examines how contemporary textile artworks, and the process of making them, are laden with multiple and often contradictory meanings. Created by more than 2,500 knitters from 22 different countries, who were mostly working-class women, to the size of a tennis court, the Knitting Map became the subject of national controversy in Ireland. Exploring the creation of this multi-modal artwork as a key moment in Irish art history, Textiles, Community and Controversy puts it into the context of feminist artists such as Judy Chicago, Faith Ringold and the Guerilla Girls. Bringing together leading art critics and textile scholars, including Lucy Lippard, Jessica Hemmings and Joanne Turney, the collection explores key issues in textile practice from gender, class and nation to technology and performance.