Craft Forward’s Radical Knitting is an Antidote to Late-Stage Capitalism

Sara K Arnold
7 days ago
5 min read

Updated: 11 hours ago

Community Spotlight

Craft Forward’s Radical Knitting is an Antidote to Late-Stage Capitalism

Knitting clubs are beating the polycrisis by knitting together a new social fabric, one loop at a time

by Sara Arnold

Photos and Video by Immo Klink

In a recent exhibition titled Commerce, artist Jeremy Hutchinson, whose work explores consumerism, production and empire, collaborated with his young daughter, Vita. This is an extract of her blunt description of the art market included in the exhibition:

The people that buy art are called callecters.

The gallerist helps to sell the art to the callecters.

The callecters buy the art because they like (or love) the art.

What do the callecters do with the art?????????

Some callecters put the art in their home and admir it.

Some callecters keep it in a box and never even look at it.

Why do they do that????????????????

They do that because they think it will go up in value sitting in the dark.

We know this story all too well. Art is revered as inherently progressive, change-making and sometimes revolutionary, whilst in reality the elitist hegemonic art system provides robust scaffolding for the systems it claims to critique. It glorifies the cult of the individual and creates commodities on which the super rich speculate, parking their excess cash for it to multiply. And whilst doing so, they sit back and bask in cultural capital.

We are neck high in a polycrisis: of obscene inequality; of what Yanis Varoufakis calls Technofeudalism; and what Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor describe as “end times facism” – “a monstrous, supremacist survivalism” from looming armageddon. And so, we ask, how can art and creativity be truly radical, addressing the roots of societal problems and actively building a different kind of future?

“What I'm trying to do is to […] redefine art as something really collective […] and so connection is really the backbone of that.”

Enter Elena Lo Presti, founder of Craft Forward. An art school graduate, Elena was struck by her grandmother’s befuddlement over her art school endeavours – a moment that made her question the commonplace elitism and exclusion in the arts.

Rejecting the gatekeeping and the hidden codes of the art world, she sought more accessible, bottom-up creativity – one that reconnects art to community. Craft Forward, based in Brixton, London, emerged as her answer: knitting and crochet clubs with purpose.

Colourful crocheted squares being assembled for Blankets for London

Elena observes that capitalist society asks you to “capitalise on every single passion and hobby you have.” She speaks of radical care and a care economy – in which we “care for connection more than products”. It begs the questions: what does creating textiles look like if creation is organised around care? How can craft help build a care economy and combat carelessness?

Elena is a community builder – and having started Craft Forward during the pandemic when social isolation was mandated, she creates spaces for learning, acceptance, sharing and above all, reinforcing a sense of interconnectedness and togetherness.

She says, “What I'm trying to do is to […] redefine art as something really collective […] and so connection is really the backbone of that.”

While many participants are young women, the Craft Forward community reflects the ethnic diversity of London and welcomes everyone warmly regardless of experience.

Members of the Craft Forward team: (from left) Huda Warsame, Elena Lo Presti, Chid Nwankwo and Tobias Gumbrill

These workshops are just as much about “increasing confidence in being social” as they are about knitting, says Elena. The pandemic is over but the scars remain – and loneliness, driven by capitalism’s mechanisms, only deepens. This is evermore true as our friendships and intimate relationships risk being commodified by AI in the market's new frontier. Within this, the simple act of knitting as a process of bonding becomes gently revolutionary.

In 2024 alone, Craft Forward’s Blankets for London project produced 221 handmade blankets for unhoused Londoners. They collaborate with partners such as Shelter, Creative Health Camden, and the LGBTQ+ Community Centre. Towards Christmas, they’ll be doing another epic Cathedral Knit at Southwark cathedral. They’ve since expanded into Blankets for the World.

Craft Forward also recently hosted a men’s knit club with the National Trust, and even launched a Pro-Choice Pro-Craft Club at The Feminist Library — creating a feminist protest banner through collective handiwork.

Members of the Craft Forward team: Huda Warsame (left) and Tobias Gumbrill (right)

The movement against negative impacts of capitalist technological advancement is an enduring struggle. The Arts and Crafts movement in the UK in the late 19th century protested the dehumanising effects of mechanised forms of production and divisions of labour. They called for valuing hands-on and intricate craftwork and were driven by a belief that the process of making was beneficial for society.

What is the purpose of creating textiles when led by the needs and wellbeing of communities rather than market forces?

These knitting clubs also echo the longstanding tradition of radical quilting which provides so many stories of activism, resilience and care. Quilting too is a grassroots, collective art, often made by marginalised communities and ignored in the history of art. As said by Jess Bailey in Many Hands Make a Quilt, “taking racial action is nurtured by quilting. Quilts are tender, fierce and reliable. They are provocative and reparative.” So too are Craft Forward’s blankets.

A Craft Forward workshop in Brixton

Craft Forward joins a movement of community knitting clubs – other examples include Colechi’s YKWU in London and Yarn Club in Berlin. From these activities the question arises – what is the purpose of creating textiles when led by the needs and wellbeing of communities rather than market forces? In that question lies the seed of a textile commons — a space where making is collaborative, non-hierarchical, and care-driven. The ritual process of making binds the community together and serves the needs and wellbeing of surrounding communities.

Through Craft Forward, Elena and her community have stitched together an antidote to late-stage capitalism: a quiet yet resilient revolution. One that mends the bonds between us — one knot at a time.