Crevice Craftivism

The Activist’s Safe Harbour

Abstract

Craftivism, a neologism combining craft and activism (Greer 2003, as cited in Freeman 2023), is among the myriad human social, political and artistic responses to the global climate crisis. This paper considers the experience of a small group of craftivists, the River Yarners, situated in Bathurst, a regional city in New South Wales, Australia. The group emerged from a 2015 grassroots community campaign to oppose water extraction of 10 megalitres a day from the local river Wambool / Macquarie for a proposed gold mine. The group’s modest, but highly visible, contribution to the campaign was a yarned representation of the river, 20–40 centimetres wide growing to 80 metres in length during the campaign. The community action was ultimately successful, but the River Yarners did not disband. The group continues to work on fibre projects that respond to threats to – and opportunities for – enhanced river-system care, biodiversity, urban tree coverage, climate-change responsive development, and healthy local ecologies. Methodology: In 2023, its eighth year, the group engaged in a process of self-reflection, asking: “How do we understand the role of the River Yarners in our community and in our own lives?” Using collaborative autoethnography, five active members of River Yarners explored the group’s emergent processes, practices and identities to write this paper. The structure of the paper is informed by the metaphor of river tributaries, each contributor’s writing a tributary combining to create the flow of one river. Findings: this reflective process revealed that craftivism in this small crevice community generates personal and psychosocial benefits for the participants, creating an effective if unintended restorative sanctuary from participating in other forms of activism. In an era of worsening climate predictions, these findings suggest an opportunity for further research into the factors that sustain small craftivist groups and the psychosocial benefits they might generate.