We have heard of guerrilla gardeners, planting gardens in public spaces under the cover of night. And there are guerrilla knitters in New York, Texas, Mexico, London, Canada, Japan and Singapore, amongst other places, drawing our attention to neglected public spaces or simply, wanting to embellish otherwise dreary city landmarks. They are a clandestine group of woolly warriors who do knit graffiti or Knitivism, decorating lamp posts, trees, street signs and public sculptures with their knitted goods. In Spain, cities such as Bilbao, Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid have seen urban knitting over the last two years.

A few days ago, it was Palma’s turn. Under the cover of darkness, a good dozen female guerrilla knitters planted 200 flowers knitted or crocheted in wool under the olive tree in Plaça Cort. I wanted to see their Knitivism street art and rushed to Palma on Friday but, alas, the law-and-order brigade or whoever else had already removed the surely inoffensive adornments. I find this undertaking quite poetical or lyrical. As it happens, the 14th Festival de Poesia de la Mediterrània is in full swing on the island but, the poetic visual suitability of the knitted garden in front of Palma’s Ajuntament seems to have escaped the mandarins in Palma. A shame, really.

The photos were borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of diariodemallorca.es (top), craftism.wordpress.com (centre) and streetblog.cie-taxibrousse.com (bottom).

Muchas gracias, and

thank you very much.