Elizabeth's Knitting Needles

Elizabeth felt disappointed and resigned when she snapped her knitting needles in March of 2015. She threw them out but then fished them out of the bin after twenty minutes having taken a moment to consider their history. She was given the needles by her Gran when she was six years old and has been knitting with them for more than 35 years. The knitting needles are a link back to her Gran and Elizabeth wanted to preserve that link.

Repairers Kyoko Hashimoto and Guy Keulemans acknowledged that Elizabeth’s connection to the object was not for functional reasons as she had many knitting needles of similar sizes. They preserved the broken object inside a wearable transparent polymer resin bracelet. Now wearable as a bracelet on her wrist, its little slices speak of the repetition of knitting patterns, and the progression of life, year by year.

Design Repairers: Kyoko Hashimoto and Guy Keulemans

Kyoko is an internationally recognised contemporary jewellery designer. A graduate of the College of Fine Arts in Sydney (UNSW Art & Design), Kyoko has operated studios from Tokyo, Eindhoven, and later Berlin where she opened the concept store We Are All Made of Stuff in the suburb of Neukölln. In 2014 and 2015, Kyoko was Production Manager and Resident Artist in the Metal Design Studio at Adelaide’s JamFactory. Kyoko makes one off and limited edition jewellery and objects with an emphasis on thematic investigation and expression. Her desire for a piece of jewellery to carry a story in a form of a concept or materiality is often imbued with a sense of humour.

Guy is a multi-disciplinary designer and researcher working across product design, graphics and installation. In his practice he produces critical objects informed by history, philosophy and experimental methodology. Major themes are repair, generative processes, and the environmental concerns of production and consumption. Guy has exhibited in museums and galleries in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland and Australia including ARS Electronica, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture, COCA Torun and Platform 21, Object, Craft ACT and Craft Victoria. He currently lectures at UNSW Art and Design.

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Elizabeth’s Knitting Needles. Repaired by Kyoko Hashimoto and Guy Keulemans. Photos by Lee Grant. Image copyright Hotel Hotel.