Over summer I finished knitting an object from the archives of Antarctica, as part of my sub-project Preparing, for the Upcycled Clinic.
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sir-douglas-mawsons-balaclavaby Anna Harris
Following experiments I have tried in previous projects involving knitting teaching models I thought I would find an entry point into the polar medical archives through knitting too. I found a wonderful pattern at Mawson's Hut in Hobart, the recreation of the Antarctic polar station, for Sir Douglas Mawson's balaclava. It was a recreation by Artlab Australia of the pattern as knitted for him by his wife Paquita, based on the original held in the Mawson Centre at the Museum of South Australia.
It was a lot of fun finding the right wool. I chose for nostalgia sake a ball of wool my sister had given me from the Waverly Knitting Mills in Victoria. It was an alpaca/wool mix and most likely way too itchy for a balaclava. However if I imagined myself with a beard ... I knitted at the archives themselves, and found other knitting Antarctic researchers, sharing our curiosity over the domestic labour of repurposing, mending and repairing at Antarctic stations.
Knitting the balaclava made me think a lot about the invisible labour and networks that were entailed and enabled Antarctic exploration. I thought about what materials they would need for the cold, and how they would take care of them, who helped them to make these and who repaired and improvised at the base.
You can read more about knitting the archive here:
Mann, J. (2018). Knitting the archive: Shetland lace and ecologies of skilled practice. Cultural Geographies, 25(1), 91-106
The V&A have also created a wonderful series of pages including free knitting patterns you can try from their archive.
