Knitting Nation is a performance and site-specific installation project. It reconfigures textile fabrication and apparel manufacturing in relation to the human labor behind it, with performance and collectivity as mediating forces. The project functions as a commentary on how humans interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, brand iconography, and fashion. This concept for performance and process emerged in a series of conversations I had beginning in 2002 with friend and fashion designer Gary Graham. As independent and emerging designers working in the fashion industry, we felt the need to create a platform to reveal the emotions, raw creative energy and labor-intensive processes that were part of our work. Subsequent collaboration between the two of us yielded a successful range of projects that focused more on garment-making and our respective businesses than performance; the drive to perform my knitting stayed with me. The first phase of Knitting Nation, “Knitting During Wartime” occurred at an art event called “The Muster” in May of 2005 on Governors Island in New York City. Hair and Makeup: Lulu Locks KN8: Liz Collins, Renata Mann, Lindsay Degen, Emily Oneill, Audrey Pondek, Ting Tham, Stephanie Song, Maria Canada, Minami Otake, Angela Oh, Crystal Walsh, Domenica Bello, Jannah Pond, Zoe Wagner, Susan Cho. Video: Alexandra Ben-Abba