Columbia University senior Emma Sulkowicz, 21, says she was raped in her own bed at the beginning of her sophomore year. This week, two years after the alleged assault, Sulkowicz, a visual-arts major, has made a promise to carry her mattress around campus every day as part of her senior thesis. It is, she says, a symbol of the burden sexual-assault survivors carry with them every day.
“The act of carrying the mattress from inside my room out into the light has mirrored the way my life has changed, as I’ve brought my personal story out into the light,” Sulkowicz told TIME. “This project is a way to heal one of the most difficult things that happened to me. As I will build muscle and get stronger, hopefully I will also build emotional strength.”
Sulkowicz started the performance-art project on Tuesday, and she said she is determined to continue carrying the mattress wherever she goes — to class, the library, the gym — as long as her alleged rapist is still on campus. That means her project could last until graduation day in May 2015 — unless her alleged assailant is either expelled or chooses to leave the school. Last year, Sulkowicz and two other women reported the same person to the university. All three cases were dismissed.
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This dude is referring to the fact that the carrying of the mattress was, indeed, performance art. That said, she did this performance art because she had been assaulted and hadn’t received justice.
@kaitco @RamRabbit This got very gross when she was a sex performer with a gray-haired dude who probably looked like the father of the dude who raped her.
If you don’t want a rapist on campus, do, then process, and make sure nobody finds the body.
Due process isn’t a thing.
What? I can’t quite make out what you’re saying here.
@velma A Gen X solution that was quite effective at one local college.
Her family wasn’t playing at all.
He was never found.
Oh…
It would be cooler if authorities took rape allegations seriously.
It would be even cooler if men stopped doing rape.
Yes, completely agree. I just don’t agree with calling for murder.
@velma It certainly would. The immense backlog of untested rape kits in a place like New Orleans (or really any city) is enough to make one very suspicious of those authorities.