The Short and amazing history of a Sock Fence

The Honorable Peter Watson MLA with the Dishonorable John Maddison UKLE.

January, 2010

A young girl on holidays in Albany is given a book for Christmas. It’s all about Yarn Bombing, a brutal action carried out by urban terrorists who drape public objects with knitted materials.

The girl and her near relatives knit a rug and hang it on the Esplanade Hotel site fence. One of her older cousins hangs a tie montage in an effort to symbolise corporate greed. All are stolen. The older cousin had earlier wired socks to a public bike rack and noted they were not stolen. It is decided to deck the Esplanade fence with socks.

March 2010

Work begins in earnest. Socks are bought. Gangs are formed. Night time mass sock bombings occur.

The rest of 2010

Albany residents, visitors and tourists embrace the Sock Fence, own it, and hang their own. Buses stop and offload camera ready tourists in increasing numbers.

A woman visits from Guildford. Is amazed at the sock fence. Heads home, forms a gang, and the heritage listed Guildford Hotel site is festooned with socks.

Another fence is hit in Kalamunda.

Then one in Ascot.

The sock becomes a legitimate and fun form of protest, of public art, of stress release from constant and relentless corporate greed.

December 2010

The Mayor of Albany orders the removal of the socks from the Esplanade Hotel site. He cites:

“The sock is nothing more than litter.”

“The need to clean up the site.”

“The sock is culturally offensive.”

The Albany Comedy Club enters the annual Albany Christmas pageant with two sides of a woolpress festooned with socks, three pretend real estate agents, and a number of signs, all shoved in and on the back of a buggered ute.

It is announced the winner of the $1000 first prize.

The Mayor kicks democracy in the teeth and insists the win be diluted with a co-winner, the Bunnings Corporation.

This is one half of the woolpress display. The other half

can be displayed in your place of business, or even your private home, for a very reasonable and hotly negotiated fee.