Photo: Stephanie Veto for LUAG and Margaret Wertheim | Facebook
For craftivists who love to use their passions for fiber arts to do good, there is no holier grail than the Crochet Coral Reef. The wildly detailed art and geometry project by sisters Christine and Margaret Wertheim uses unwieldy, colorful, hand-stitched coral to respond to climate change and has been brought to life in museums around the world over the past two decades. It started with what is now called the "Core Collection," or a mass of crocheted reefs created by the Wertheims that has traveled to the globe's most esteemed museums and galleries. But the other strand of the project, which invites thousands of handicrafters to contribute, exists in a poetic contrast to the real-world state of the planet's reefs: it's growing rapidly. "At a time when living reefs are dying from heat exhaustion and our oceans are awash in plastic, the Crochet Coral Reef offers a tender impassioned response," the project's website reads. The project is a work of grief and action – an attempt to convey the beauty of the natural world, made by human hands. The project has been supported by over 25,000 crocheters. Above all, what the Wertheims have accomplished is a deeper understanding of humanity's connection to the natural world – and their desire to protect it.
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