Colloquim ‘Amateur Craft as Method-in-the-Making: Experiments in Knitting Screen Time during a Pandemic’, October 22nd

In this colloquium, Denise Petzold, Sally Wyatt, Ruth Benschop, and Anna Harris bring and discuss an experimental object created during the pandemic by a handful of amateur knitting colleagues who met regularly online: a knitted book. This book, which contains pages crafted by each member of the group and their documentation notes, is a data sensorialisation of the knitters’ screentime during one week of COVID-19 lockdown. This was initially created to better understand our changing relationships to digital technology taking place during lockdowns and to also provide some relief from screentime. However, the process of making this object quickly raised questions that touch upon the very nature of data collection and how to do research. How does knitting, as a technology itself, become a critical research practice? How do specific materials like yarns or types of needles affect and shape our methods, and vice versa? How might amateur, craft or artistic practices challenge academic traditions? And what, finally, to do with the hybrid object that came out of this project? 

We invite the audience to bring their knitting or crochet supplies for a hands-on exercise (we will also provide a basic stash of yarn and needles), as well as to share their own examples of creative materialisations of data. The meeting will start at 15:30 in the attic, but we will be in the room from 15:00 onwards, so please feel free to join us before to have a look at and handle the book in peace, or to get a quick basic tutorial on how to knit so you can join in.

Organized by Denise Petzold, Maastricht University

22 oktober 2025, 15:30-17:00

Maastricht, Grote Gracht 80-82, room 3.002

(Note: To enter the building, go to the main entrance at Grote Gracht 90-92, where people at reception will point the way. You are welcome from 15:00 to look at the knitted book in detail.)