Margaret Wertheim is the co-creator, with her sister Christine, of the Crochet Coral Reef Project, exhibited in New York and in other states in 2009. (read article in LA Times). Using a crochet technique, she celebrates the amazement of the reef and global warming's devastating effect.
In this video she provides a vivid explanation of hyperbolic geometry which can be modeled excellently in crochet. This is how she draws attention to distressed coral reefs around the world that are dying in droves from changing ocean saline levels, overfishing, and numerous other threats.
Coral reefs are amazing and we can take a peek of its beauty through art in the form of crocheted fiber of many different colors. On the other hand, they also showed how corals look when it goes through bleaching, losing its colors because of environmental stress.(see Wikipedia article).
Watch this TED talk to find out more about the fascinating intersection of craft, nature, physics, beauty, math and global warming.
After viewing this I got inspired to look for patterns to do some hyperbolic crochet. Will add those to my queue ;)
what a noble way to use her skill, bravo! to her ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat video! The coral reef crochet projects are fascinating to me as well. So gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched the video (my computer is acting up), but that looks like a lot of work! Maybe I could do the Hyperbolic Pseudosphere Scrubbie someday, though... :P
ReplyDeleteHi Tina! The video is very informative, and I was impressed with the speaker :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't started on hyperbolic projects too...