The Crochet Coral Reef is a project by Christine Wertheim & Margaret Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring. It is an artwork responding to climate change and also a global community-based exercise in applied mathematics and evolutionary theory.
At a time when living reefs are dying from heat exhaustion and our oceans are awash in plastic, the Crochet Coral Reef offers a tender impassioned response. This is a crafty retort to climate change, a one-stitch-at-a-time meditation on the Anthropocene.
Like the organic creatures they emulate, these handmade sculptures take time to make – time that is condensed in the millions of stitches on display, time that is running out for earthly critters including humans and cnidarians. Time forms a framework for the project, for as CO2 accumulates in our atmosphere time is increasingly in short supply and what we choose to spend time on is a reflection of our values.
Photo by Jenna Bascom for the Museum of Arts and Design via the Crochet Coral Reef project.