"There are many interfacings, mixes between felt and fabric. Can we not displace the opposition yet again? In knitting, for example, the needles produce a striated space; one of them plays the role of the warp, the other of the woof, but by turns. Crochet, on the other hand, draws an open space in all directions, a space that is prolongable in all directions—but still has a center. A more significant distinction would be between embroidery, with its central theme or motif, and patchwork, with its piece-by-piece construction, its infinite, successive additions of fabric."

-- Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Milles Plateaux), p. 476

Eva HesseRight after (1969)

Faith WildingCrocheted Environment (Womb Room) (1972)

When I made my original crocheted environment for Womanhouse in l971, I was motivated by my research on women's work and lives in various cultures. I found that women's work of making homes and domestic environments has been pivotal (though largely unacknowledged) in the major cultural inventions of civilization. The transformation of "natural" materials by human activity -- variously called "work", "craft", or "art"-- has been practiced since the beginning of human history for at least two reasons -- necessity (usefulness), and pleasure (uselessness). One distinction usually made between "craft" and "art" is that of usefulness (necessity) and uselessness (pleasure). Craft is generally thought of as unalienated (autonomous) work as opposed to the irksome, forced, necessity of labor, while art is related to nonrational work-as-play. Yet, as everyone who has made things knows, this binary is a false one; work, craft, and art, are intertwined in complex ways which reflect actual lived experience in which the mundane (rational) is constantly inflected by the transcendent (nonrational). The division of labor not only divides work up by gender and class, but it also separates the pleasurable and necessary aspects of work itself.

-- Faith Wilding, Monstruous Domesticityhttp://www.lilithgallery.com/feminist/domesticity.html

Gowanus (2004)

Sheila PepeMidtown (2007)

Mr. Slit (2007)

http://thebigdrawscarf.wordpress.com/

Krysten Cunningham4D b (2006)

Bioimplantable device for reconstructive shoulder surgeryDesigned by Prof. Simon Frostick and Dr. Alan McLeodTextile designed by Peter Butcher

Brenna MaagFamily Hortusaceae (2009)

http://www.brennamaag.ca/

Always the same metaphor: we follow it, it transports us, in all of its forms, wherever a discourse is organized.

Helene CixousSorties (1975)

Activity/PassivitySun/MoonCulture/NatureDay/NightFather/MotherHead/HeartIntelligible/SensitiveLogos/PathosForm/MatterConvex/ConcaveStep/GroundSeed/Receptacle.Man/Woman.

"The heterosexualization of desire requires and institutesthe production of discrete and asymetrical oppositions between 'feminine' and 'masculine,' where these are understood as expressive attributes of 'male' and 'female.'"

– Judith Butler, Gender Trouble

Sex

biologicalnaturalessenceessentialistbodypassivebasebeingsubstancerigidstablecoherentpre-discursivepre-linguisticpre-sociala-historical

Gender

politicalculturalconstructionconstructivistsoul (psyche, mind)activesuperstructurebecomingperformance[mobile, variable]unstablenon-coherentdiscursivelinguisticsocialhistorical

Toril MoiWhat Is a Woman? (1999)

http://books.google.no/books?id=Gup4uD98gIAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=etienne+balibar#v=onepage&q=etienne%20balibar&f=false

"Allow me to flirt for a moment with some of the language play of my philosopher colleagues. The idea of a simple definition of what constitutes a border is, by definition, absurd: to mark out a border is, precisely, to define a territory, to delimit it, and so to register the identity of that territory. Conversely, however, to define or identify in general is nothing other than to trace a border, to assign boundaries or borders (in Greek, horos; in Latin, finis or terminus; in German, Grenze; in French, borne)."

-- Etienne Balibar, "What Is a Border?"