Yarnbombers warm Baguio City streets with cuddly graffiti

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Baguio has its share of the ugliest graffiti. But it also seems to have the cuddliest.

Artist Dumay Solinggay and her merry bunch have started “yarnbombing” Session Road last week, making the cold city warmer.

“It’s the onset of rainy season and a few months from now is the ‘ber’ season so it is time to get ready with our warm clothing. But what about making our surroundings warmer like putting knitted scarves around cold things like metals?” said Solinggay, a poet and organizer of the upcoming Baguio Literary Festival.

The Baguio yarnbombers started with the newly-renovated People’s Park. They crocheted the bricks on the pavement and the light post. There is even a “crocheted splat” near the manhole. Little cute crocheted mushrooms were stolen as fast as they sprouted.

“Yarnbombing, otherwise called yarnstorming, is believed to have started in 2005 in Texas in the U.S. From a mere doorknob covered with colorful crocheted fabric, the movement started and has spread around the world like a storm,” said Solinggay.

Yarnbombing is also known as graffiti knitting.

“What’s interesting with the movement is that it is stereotypically feminine. Graffiti art is mostly dominated by men. But with yarnbombing becoming very popular, it may balance the statistics of graffitists and or street artists,” she added.

On Friday midnight, she created a “rainbow pisser” attached to a fire hydrant at Session Road but this, too, was immediately stolen.

Solinggay and her team said they will persevere with their yarnbombing despite these thefts.

“Crocheted and knitted things evoke warmth and comfortability. Doing graffiti out of yarns however the image may make the artwork suggestive of comfort like the snuggle we get from our grandmothers,” she said.

“We have a city ordinance called the Anti-Graffiti Code that bans graffiti in the city. With yarnbombs, the city officials might reconsider what they think of graffiti and instead of prohibiting the art form, they would encourage creativity instead.”

 – Rappler.com