Abstract

In 2022, I moved to Paris and everything in my life fell apart. Little did I know, knitting was going to become my lifeline. This is a research-creation thesis that describes my journey through a non-linear, unconventional healing process that led me to realize that there are so many benefits to being a knitter, on both the personal and educational aspects of life. The research is supported by a theoretical foundation of punk scholarship. I argue that punks share a lot with knitters in many aspects of their ethos. Most prominently, they both consider DIY as their core value. Furthermore, I believe that they both display subversive behaviors by not conforming to the established ideas of commercial beauty. The creative portion of this project is made up of 12 shawls I have knitted in the past two years. These woolly, emotionally complex landscapes of fears and self-doubt, but also of joyful reminiscence and precious memories, have provided me with an alternative way to process inner darkness by engaging with a colorful, comforting material, as well as highlight the fact that knitting has a lot of pedagogical value, in both formal and informal schooling structures. Together, the shawls form a soft, chaotic and powerful reminder that (a), healing takes many forms, (b), there are alternative ways to develop computational skills and (c), it is ok to be punk, academic and crafty all at once.