Magda Sayeg is widely recognized as the founder of the knit graffiti movement. Her colorful knitted yarn breathes new visual and texture into ordinary objects. It all started with her knitting household objects before decorating the streets with knit graffiti, creating a new cityscape unlike any others before.
Magda Sayeg launched the Knitta movement in 2005 by inserting handmade art in a landscape of concrete and steel. Through texture, color and warm materials, she infuses warmth and humanity that otherwise rarely exist. In a world of concrete, steel and factory-molded items, her work is an unexpected and delightful surprise. Her invention of the knit graffiti has inspired a new generation of knitters who no longer view function as the sole purpose for knitting. This new approach to knitting questions the assumptions of a traditional craft while adding a previously unused material to the world of street art. It was her message urging us to stop and take a moment to appreciate our surroundings in a new way. It is also her response to the dehumanizing qualities of the urban environment in which she lived by creating a juxtaposition of woven material placed within an urban environment that sparks an unexpected tenderness and pleasant surprise.