On March 18, 2021, IFF director Margaret Wertheim will present a guest lecture about the Crochet Coral Reef as Material Fiction, for Dr. Molly Hand’s class on “Ecocriticism and Literature” at Florida State University.
Crochet Coral Reef as material science fiction
Wertheim will address the idea of the CCR project as a “material science fiction” and the interdisciplinarity of the project and her work more broadly at the interface of science and art. How does the project create a sensory and aesthetic experience, perhaps one that defies language and encourages a response and interaction beyond language? How do the crocheted Bleached Reef and Toxic Reef challenge our ideas about natural aesthetics through a “beautiful” invocation of ecological destruction? How does the CCR project intersect with questions about gender and how crochet and related handicrafts are generally associated with femininity? How might we think about gender with respect to the project as a response to environmental degradation? And how does the project operate as a participatory community experience that crosses socioeconomic and normative class lines?
Photo credit: Coral Forest at Lehigh University Art Galleries, image courtesy LUAG by Stephanie Veto.