MIT MuseumKendall Square, Cambridge
Crochet Coral Reef
Margaret Wertheim and mathematician Erik Demaine turn fibre art, hyperbolic geometry and marine science into collective climate action, highlighting the threat to coral reefs. Opens with the OCEANS season.
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One wall holds a single coral painting, 10 feet high and 18 feet wide, made of more than 5,000 crocheted pieces from over 4,000 people across the German-speaking world. Every one of their names is in the gallery. Your last group project had four people and still fell apart.
You walk in among three towering Coral Forest sculptures: two in bright yarn for a living reef, one in recycled plastic for a bleached one. Their frills are hyperbolic geometry, crocheted with a method the mathematician Daina Taimina devised in 1997, and a blackboard of hand-drawn diagrams shows the math. MIT's Erik and Martin Demaine add two paper sculptures that fold themselves into the same curves.
It's for anyone who prefers their math made by hand. Entry is included in general admission ($20 adults, $10 ages 6 to 18), daily 10am to 5pm. Free crochet workshops, with registration, run on 24 October, 27 November and 26 to 27 December.
Look for
Five Fathoms Deep
Look for the layered wall of crocheted coral, assembled from more than 5,000 pieces, shown in the US for the first time with all 4,000 makers' names alongside.
Nin Imma, the plastic tower
The one Coral Forest sculpture crocheted from recycled plastic stands beside its two yarn siblings, Stheno and Medusa, as a bleached reef next to living ones.
Pod Worlds
Small vitrines each hold a miniature reef, in materials ranging from beadwork and electroluminescent wire to plastic collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Nerd Snipe
The Demaines scored paper with concentric circles of alternating folds so it pleats itself into a hyperbolic form, with math puzzles printed on it in fonts they designed.
The Mathematics Blackboard
A blackboard of hand-drawn diagrams working out the hyperbolic geometry behind every frill in the room.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
The museum's crochet workshops are recommended for ages 14 and up, with an adult present throughout. Ages 6 to 18 pay $10 and under-6s are free.
Also at MIT Museum
On now nearby
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Image credits
7
- List Projects 35: Pap Souleye FallMel Taing / MIT List Visual Arts Center
- 40 Years of Contemporary ArtMIT List Visual Arts Center
- Uri Aran: Look How Hard They WorkCourtesy the artist / MIT List Visual Arts Center
- MIT MuseumS5A-0043 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- MIT List Visual Arts Centerajay_suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Gibson House MuseumDaderot / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Museum of Science, BostonDaderot, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain