Miles of yarn and string stretch across inflatable structures, galleries and outdoor environments in these crocheted and knotted art installations, offering massive interactive playgrounds that invite people to climb, bounce and lounge. String is used as both an art medium and a functional, supportive structure in projects ranging from vast playscapes for children to a public NYC installation made of 1.4 million feet of hand-knotted rope.

Colorful Crochet Playgrounds by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

Perhaps the most vast and complex crocheted works ever created, Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s colorful installations are literal playgrounds for kids and adults, installed in parks and playgrounds. The artist starts her design process by creating a wooden scale model of the space where the net will be installed, and thence rockets the piece in fine cotton thread. That design is then adapted to full scale with yarn. ‘Rainbow Net,’ her most famous piece, took three years to complete and is located at the children’s area of the Takino Suzuran Hillside National Park in Sapporo, Japan.

Crocheted Alligator Playground by Olek

An alligator the size of a particularly massive dinosaur is covered in colorful crocheted yarn in ‘Crocheted Jacaré,’ a piece in Brazil by Brooklyn-based artist Olek. The alligator was already a part of the playground, Olek simply created some temporary clothes for it that made it stand out even more.

In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground

Transparent net hung over a four-story drop offers a rather frightening play experience for anyone with the slightest fear of heights. Artist Tomás Saraceno created the 2500-square-meter installation at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Dusseldorf, Germany, inviting visitors to walk out onto the cloud-like nets amidst mirrored spheres.

Inhabitable String Structure by Numen/For Use

Climbers make their way through a grid made of string in this ‘social sculpture’ installation by design collective Numen/For Use. The ropes are contained within an inflatable structure, secured to all sides of the interior. When the bubble is deflated, they fall to the ground, and when it’s inflated, they become a taut interactive playground. The designers describe it as “bodies entrapped in a 3D grid, flying in unnatural positions throughout superficial white space, resemble dadaist collages. Impossibility of perception of scale and direction results in the simultaneous feeling of immenseness and absence of space.”

Crocheted Net Nests by Ernesto Neto

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto creates massive crochet installations reminiscent of the playgrounds by Horiuchi MacAdam, but in more muted tones. Strung from gallery ceilings, these strange little ‘nests’ offer an inhabitable space that can be either playful or quiet and comforting. Larger pieces encourage running and jumping, while the smaller ones are cocoon-like relaxation spaces.

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Crochet Playscapes 13 Interactive String Installations

A genderless figure in head-to-toe crochet camouflage lounges on a crochet-covered chair atop a crochet rug, surrounded by crochet wall hangings that say things like “Wake up and play with me.” In another scene,  a crocheted person stands beside what resembles a gigantic car cozy. Polish-born Brooklyn-based artist Agata Olek definitely isn’t making boring blankets or grandma sweaters – she’s working her needles like a madwoman on the most bizarre and unexpected things.

At her recent solo exhibition entitled ‘Knitting is for Pus****’ at New York’s Christopher Henry Gallery, Olek covered practically every square inch of the space in multi-colored crochet, but the installation was just a home base for a range of work that also includes costumes and sculpture. From that gallery burst forth groups of performers outfitted in holey camouflage, looking like deranged robbers debuting a new kind of disguise, holding signs or laying down on benches to be observed and puzzled over by passersby. Gallery visitors were even provided with a map to find more of her installations across the city.

Olek’s interest in crochet began in early childhood and intensified after she graduated from college with a cultural studies degree and found herself wanting to work on art while watching movies. Crochet proved to be the perfect medium, and the artist even occasionally knits in front of a live audience while surrounded by her work – hidden by a crochet ski mask, of course.

“A loop after a loop. Hour after hour my madness becomes crochet. Life and art are inseparable. The movies I watch while crocheting influence my work, and my work dictates the films I select. I crochet everything that enters my space. Sometimes it’s a text message, a medical report, found objects. There is the unraveling, the ephemeral part of my work that never lets me forget about the limited life of the art object and art concept. What do I intend to reveal? You have to pull the end of the yarn and unravel the story behind the crochet.”