Project 2 Final Reflection: Textile Détournement and Public Space
- Alexandros Barbayianis
- Dec 12, 2025
- 8 min read
Documentation: Photos, Sketches & Prototypes
Summary
What is this project?
Textile Détournement and Public Space uses guerrilla yarn bombing as a form of resistance art that challenges institutional gatekeeping in public creative expression. The project transforms spectators into co-creators through unauthorized fabric interventions in NYC public spaces. Working at Material for the Arts sourcing donated institutional materials creates a détournement loop where organizational waste becomes critique of organizational control.
What makes it a critical experience?
The work operates in the gray area between confrontation and invitation, what I discovered as the secret third option. The unauthorized nature challenges bureaucratic barriers while the soft tactile materials invite participation rather than demand it. The critical lens examines who has authority to alter shared environments through both hard arrangements like park signage and anti-houseless bench dividers and soft arrangements like internalized social rules about what belongs in public space.
The work reveals power structures through their response. Smaller interventions persist while larger ones get removed within 24-48 hours, documenting institutional priorities about tolerated versus policed unauthorized creativity.
Process Evolution:
Started small: Dead log in Central Park → small fences → stop signs → bench parts → whole benches → basketball court sections → subway cart sections
Key methodology shift: Originally planned signs inviting participation but realized that would undermine the unauthorized nature and just become permitted public art. Instead let the work itself be the invitation through material choice and gesture.
Key Interventions:
Hallett Nature Sanctuary: Children asking who will clean this up revealed social policing mechanisms
Maria Hernandez Park: Stranger approached with friendliness not judgment, confirming soft materials were working
Washington Square Park: Glitter fabric tied from anti-houseless bench divider to pine tree with flowing blue lace
Subway: Passenger said they loved what I was doing mid-installation, validating confrontation-invitation hybrid
Research Trail
Margaret Smith Librarian Consultation:
Started with scattered ideas about street art, bureaucracy, Dadaism. Margaret helped narrow search starting with yarn bombing which led to foundational texts. Then trying textile as resistance as search term brought us to détournement, the Situationist technique of reusing preexisting elements to create new subversive messages. This became the theoretical framework.
Core Readings:
McGovern, Alyce. Craftivism and Yarn Bombing: A Criminological Exploration. 2019.
Gentle transgression concept
If beautifying something is it still vandalism
Who has right to alter public space
How we define harm
Moore, Mandy & Prain, Leanne. Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti. 2019.
Juxtaposition of feminine medium in traditionally masculine context
Craft as Trojan horse of social justice
Historical context of yarn bombing movement
Millie, Andrew. "Crimes of the Senses: Yarn Bombing and Aesthetic Criminology." British Journal of Criminology 59.6 (2019): 1269-1287.
Mann, Joanna. "Towards a Politics of Whimsy: Yarn Bombing the City." Area 47.1 (2015): 65-72.
Design Studio for Social Intervention. Ideas, Arrangements, Effects framework.
Hard arrangements: physical infrastructure, park rules, bench dividers, subway handrails
Soft arrangements: social rules, internalized policing, assumptions about unauthorized creativity
Additional Research:
Situationist International writings on détournement and spectacle Research by making as methodology through daily practice Documentation of what persists versus what gets removed revealing institutional priorities
Bibliography
Books:
McGovern, Alyce. Craftivism and Yarn Bombing: A Criminological Exploration. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Moore, Mandy, and Leanne Prain. Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019.
Articles:
Millie, Andrew. "Crimes of the Senses: Yarn Bombing and Aesthetic Criminology." British Journal of Criminology 59.6 (2019): 1269-1287.
Mann, Joanna. "Towards a Politics of Whimsy: Yarn Bombing the City." Area 47.1 (2015): 65-72.
Theoretical Frameworks:
Situationist International. Détournement theory and writings on spectacle.
Design Studio for Social Intervention. Ideas, Arrangements, Effects.
Related Artworks:
Yarn bombing movement globally
Guerrilla public art interventions
Craftivism and textile resistance practices
Evaluation Rubric
My hope is to reveal bureaucratic gatekeeping of public art in order to make visible who has authority to alter shared environments in order to question assumptions about unauthorized creativity in order to invite everyday people to become co-creators in order to challenge the binary between permitted community art and criminal vandalism.
Success metrics:
Work generates community curiosity and participation before institutional shutdown
Documentation captures full cycle: intervention → discovery → institutional response → removal
Work sparks questions about who authorizes creativity in public space without needing explanatory text
Both removal and addition function as valid completions showing open authorship
What I tested:
Does textile vandalism create curiosity versus graffiti's familiar recognition
How long do different scales of intervention persist
What distinguishes hard from soft arrangements in public space policing
Can confrontation and invitation function simultaneously
What I Learned
The Secret Third Option:
The biggest breakthrough was discovering I wasn't choosing between confrontation or invitation but creating both simultaneously. My body and my making became the invitation while the unauthorized act was the confrontation. This resolved the binary I was stuck in and opened up the actual work.
Graffiti vs Textile Vandalism:
When someone sees graffiti they walk away already familiar with it. Textile vandalism creates curiosity because its unfamiliar. People literally don't have a script for how to respond so they approach with questions instead of assumptions. The subway passenger saying they loved what I was doing mid-installation proved this.
Scale and Institutional Response:
Smaller disruptions on stop signs and fencing persist. Larger ones like basketball courts and benches get removed within 24-48 hours. This removal pattern reveals institutional priorities. The work functions through this response, making bureaucratic control visible.
Open Authorship:
Framing the work as a series that others can add to or completely remove from existence means Im not the sole author. The work includes whoever asks questions, whoever participates, whoever removes it, whoever documents it. Both responses are valid completions.
Research by Making:
Daily practice interventions followed by documentation of what persists versus what gets removed generated the actual research. The methodology itself was making, observing institutional response, then making again with that knowledge.
Feedback Received
From peers:
David: "Its like a public space in-situ collage. I always love how you turn things, materials, and objects around to make them more fun and meaningful. You have a way with repurposing stuff."
Ang: "Organizational waste critiques organizational control - really strong research. I wanna see more of your documentation!"
Caroline: "I really enjoy looking at your prototypes and how you reflect this topic. Is there any meaning behind different materials used?"
Dae: "Its always interesting watching how you go about your projects and the physicality of them in spaces. Your project raised a lot of great questions and its a little ironic about how you questioned if making things needed a deeper meaning but delved deeper and became extremely meaningful."
Reflections on critique:
The feedback validated the détournement loop concept. People understood how repurposing institutional waste to critique institutional control functioned conceptually. Questions about specific material choices pushed me to consider whether different fabrics carry different meanings beyond just what was available at MFTA.
The irony Dae pointed out about starting from questioning whether making needs meaning then creating deeply meaningful work captures the journey. The conversation with my friend saying that's called crafting became the entry point that led to craftivism and eventually to this entire project.
What I Might Do Differently
Documentation approach:
Keeping low profile with quick snapshots, polaroids, and film was necessary for the unauthorized nature but limited documentation quality. If continuing I would develop better systems for capturing both the intervention and community response without breaking the discrete methodology. Maybe recruit collaborators to document while I work.
Community invitation:
The secret third option worked but I never fully tested explicit invitation to participate. What happens if materials and simple instructions are provided at the site? Does that shift the work from unauthorized intervention to permitted community art or can both coexist?
Multiple sites simultaneously:
Working sequentially across locations made removal documentation clearer but limited scale. Simultaneous interventions across multiple parks would test how institutions prioritize response and make removal logistically harder, emphasizing proliferation over concentration.
Drone footage:
Never executed this even though it was in the plan. Aerial documentation would capture spatial relationships differently and show how the interventions interact with park architecture and circulation patterns.
What Was Inspiring
The thread metaphor:
Discovering the physical demonstration of individual threads being weak but looped together becoming rope perfectly captured the community power concept. One bench may go unnoticed but more surface area means larger message. This connected to the stopped Chinatown ICE raids through community protest.
Children asking about cleanup:
That moment at Hallett Nature Sanctuary revealed how social policing works. The soft arrangement of internalized rules about what belongs made even kids feel responsible for enforcing institutional order.
Material for the Arts détournement loop:
Working there and sourcing donated materials that were discarded institutional surplus then transforming them into unauthorized public art critique created perfect détournement. The materials themselves became the message.
Moore & Prain describing craft as Trojan horse:
This framing validated the methodology. Soft tactile materials disarm institutional response initially because beautification doesn't immediately register as vandalism the way spray paint does.
Project Relation to Assignment Prompts
Critical lens:
The work examines power structures in public space through the lens of who has authority to alter shared environments. Hard arrangements like anti-houseless bench dividers and soft arrangements like internalized rules about unauthorized creativity both function as institutional control mechanisms. The critical question is not whether yarn bombing is vandalism but who decides what belongs in public space and how that authority is maintained or challenged.
Audience:
Primary audience is everyday people moving through urban space, commuters, parents, casual park visitors who suddenly encounter something unauthorized. Secondary audience is institutional authorities whose response becomes part of the work. Tertiary audience is other makers who might continue the series.
Tone:
The tone is simultaneously confrontational and invitational through the secret third option. The unauthorized nature challenges authority while soft tactile materials invite curiosity and participation. This hybrid tone distinguishes the work from aggressive graffiti and from permitted cheerful community art.
Form:
Chose textile interventions specifically because the medium is unfamiliar as vandalism. Graffiti is legible, textile vandalism creates questions. The form itself carries the message about gentle transgression and the juxtaposition of feminine craft in traditionally masculine public space contestation.
Balancing Research and Experimentation
Which was easier:
Experimentation through making was more natural for me. Going out at night with fabric and just wrapping benches generated insights that reading about yarn bombing couldn't. The methodology itself was research by making.
Research challenges:
Initially struggled to find theoretical framework. Scattered ideas about street art, bureaucracy, Dadaism didn't cohere until Margaret helped narrow to détournement. Reading McGovern and Moore & Prain after already doing interventions made the theory click because I recognized what they described in my own practice.
Integration:
The strongest moments came when research and experimentation fed each other. Reading about hard and soft arrangements then observing which interventions persisted versus got removed made the theory tangible. Discovering the secret third option through making at MHP then finding validation in craftivism literature created theoretical backing for intuitive practice.
What I shy away from:
Planning and pre-production. I prefer making then reflecting over extensive preparation. This served the project well since research by making was the methodology but meant documentation systems were improvised rather than structured. Next time I would build better documentation infrastructure before starting interventions while keeping the spontaneous making approach.
Moving forward:
The balance I want is strong theoretical grounding through readings and conversations with experts like Margaret, then extensive hands-on experimentation that tests and challenges that theory, then reflection that synthesizes both into new understanding. This project taught me that research doesn't have to precede making, they can be simultaneous and generative.
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