About the Crochet Coral ReEF PROJECT

The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.

Created and curated by IFF directors:
Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim

One of the acknowledged wonders of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef stretches along the coast of Queensland like a psychadelic serpent, a riotous profusion of color and form unparalleled on our planet. But global warming and pollutants so threaten this fragile monster that scientists now believe the reef will be devastated in coming years. As a homage to the Great One, IFF directors Margaret and Christine Wertheim instigated a project to crochet a woolen reef. The sisters, who grew up in Queensand, have been spearheading the project since 2005, quiety watching as it has morphed into an unexpected and far-reaching wordwide movement.

The Reef begins with the technique of hyperbolic crochet discovered by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina, which the Institute has taken up and elaborated into a polyphony of organismal crochet procedures, bringing into being in a wide taxonomy of reef-life forms. Loopy "kelps", fringed "anemones", and curlicued "corals" have all been modeled. While the process that brings these models into being is algorithmic, endless permutations of the underlying formulae result in a constantly surprising panoply of shapes. The quality of yarn, style of stitch, and tightness of the crochet all affect the finished forms so that each is as individual as a living organism. As a whole, the Crochet Reef is made up of many different “sub-reefs,” each with its own colors and styling: these include the Bleached Reef, the Beaded Reef, the Branched Anemone Garden, and our largest work, The Ladies’ Silurian Atoll, a ring-shaped installation with close to 1000 individual crochet pieces made by dozens of contributors around the world. In addition to these woolen reefs is the massive Toxic Reef crocheted from yarn and plastic trash - a part of the project that responds to the escalating problem of plastic trash that is innundating our oceans and choking marine life.

Each crochet model results from the application of an iterative recipe. Like fractals, such as the Mandelbrot Set, these forms come into being through the process of doing a small set of steps again and again and again. Though experience often serves as a guide, there is no way to know in advance what a specific algorithm will produce and we have many times been surprised when seemingly insignificant changes in the underlying pattern led to fundamentally new results. In a very real sense, this is a kind of experimental mathematics and we invite crocheters everywhere to explore for themselves the possibilities inherent in these techniques.

More information about these techniques and instructons for making specific forms are given in the IFF's extensive Onine Exhibit about Hyperboic Crochet. We encourage beginners to expore this Exhibit, which also explains the concept of hyperbolic space.

This information is also available in a beautifully produced handbook published by the Institute called A Field Guide to Hyperboic Space, which may be purchased here: A Field Guide to Hyperbolic Space.

As you explore, be playful. Don’t worry about sticking too closely to the formal rules, though it’s interesting and important to understand what the rules do. Try things out for fun. Experiment with different types of yarn. Try mixing yarns together, say a thick worsted and a fine mohair, or a silk and a cotton thread. Try varying the rate of increasing in a single model. Consider using string, wire, and plastic, or anything else that takes your fancy. Try felting – throw the finished model in a washing machine with hot water and let it churn for half an hour. This only works with pure wool (acrylics and cotton won't felt) but the results are wonderfu!

We encourage you all to be inventive - in the end the only overriding rule of the Crochet Reef project is that there are no rules that can't be broken. Just as living organisms continually evolve and morph into new forms, so too there is an endless taxonomy of crochet reef forms awaiting to be.