MTWMAM#5: Knitted paper sock

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This is part of the series, Making Things With Makers About Making. You can read the introduction to the project, and see other items in the series.

This item is contributed by Megan McPherson, from Australia. She explains:

I am making a thesis and what I’ve worked out is that when I make things to go with it, the ideas flow better.

This is the methodology chapter. I’m thinking about reflexivity, agency and identity. I made a hand dyed knitted paper sock to think about making texts. The process is in my Instagram feed. I am writing it into a scholarly article.

The other thing I seem to be making is a digital identity, also currently being written up with colleagues.

Later, Megan sent ‘a bit more sock explanation’:

Currently I am experimenting with dyeing rice paper and knitting it into wearable–unwearable clothing.

I’m trying to work through the notion of doing ‘uncomfortable reflexivity’ as a researcher. I am making objects of clothing that are comforting, as a habitus of practice in the activity of research by producing academic texts. I am working with indigo dyed materials and paper to consider the cultural and historical connotations of the use of the dyestuff. I am examining cultural assumptions and expectations in my artwork and investigating a particular way a cultural artefact like indigo has been used historically.

The sock is about my comfort and discomfort in doing the activities of research.

I like to write with socks and shoes on.

Thank you to Megan for sending this in. Next you might like to look at other items in the series.

One Response to “MTWMAM#5: Knitted paper sock”

  1. Mary Kay Culpepper

    What a fantastic statement of the presentation of self! And because a sock is knitted by conforming to the somewhat counter-intuitive rules of shaping which come together at the last possible moment, it couldn’t be a more fitting metaphor for methodology. Well and beautifully done.

    Reply

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