October 3, 2014
Intersecting art and activism, the Womyn’s Center held a solidarity march on Tuesday to support Emma Sulkcowicz, a Columbia undergrad who has caused waves recently with her protest against the school’s sexual assault policy. Instead of carrying signs and banners, the marchers carried pillows and mattresses.
For those unfamiliar with the project, the mattresses are both artistically and politically symbolic. During her junior year at Columbia, Sulkcowicz was raped by a fellow student, and despite going through the College’s disciplinary process and appealing several decisions, all her efforts failed to adequately punish her assailant, keeping him on campus with her, where she would have to face him regularly. Left with no formal options, Sulkcowicz used her senior art project, called “Carry that Weight,” as a medium for protest and began carrying around her mattress as performance art.
The purpose of the piece is to both materialize the psychological weight of her trauma and to emphasize the intimacy of the attack by using an object which is one of the most common and intimate spaces a person has. She began the project at the beginning of the school year, and plans to continue the piece until either she or her rapist leaves the campus.
In no time at all, this audacious woman’s statement grabbed the attention of media outlets around the globe and of college campuses with similarly flawed administrative systems for handling sexual assault. While Hamilton has an upstanding history of active and open response to sexual assaults on campus, it is an undeniable fact that it still happens. Statistics show that one in four female students will be raped during their college careers.
Raising awareness about these grave statistics was certainly a part of the march’s goal. Womyn’s Center executive board member Tracy Mazerolle ’15 , commented, “The purpose of Tuesday’s protest was to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual violence in our society, particularly on college campuses... Sexual assault and misconduct is disturbingly common on college campuses, including at our own school, so we wanted to bring the issue to the forefront at Hamilton and send a message of support and solidarity to survivors of these violent crimes.”
Emily Eisler ’17 attended the protest and reiterated this sentiment: “I feel like sexual assault is something that people do not talk about enough, and it’s way more prevalent than most people think it is.”
The march began at the Science Center where around 75 students gathered with dozens of pillows and a few mattresses. The group was primarily composed of women, but several men were also present, one even with his own mattress. The group walked up Martin’s Way to the Kirner Johnson Building and chanted in protest of sexual assault. After seeing a couple of students manage to get through their mornings with their mattresses in tow earlier in the day, some students believed that a whole group carrying one together would not be very hard. After a few minutes though, the performance piece became far less symbolic and much more physical as the weight of the mattress began to strain the six students carrying it.
The protest ended at KJ, and the group talked about their protest experiences that day. One student described how a classmate thought it was weird that such a small girl would decide to carry a mattress that was so large instead of just a pillow or blanket. The art’s meaning may not have been immediately evident, but it was enough to start a conversation, which could explain the meaning, something all activism strives to do.
Reflecting on the protest, Mazzerolle ’15 said, “We were extremely happy with the support that the protest received. It was fantastic to see so many people carrying mattresses, pillows, stuffed animals and other bedding items throughout the day, and we had a great turnout for our solidarity march across campus.”
The use of artistic expression in such a political movement is certainly not typical, but the two are not mutually exclusive. Mazzerolle felt that “Art and activism are closely related in many ways. Both evoke emotion and consideration of topics that the artist/activist wishes to address.”
Sulkcowicz and the Womyn’s Center seemed to have found a new, provocatively effective way to incite conversation on otherwise forgotten issues. Mazzerolle enjoyed and supported the combination of art and activism, saying, “If another opportunity presents itself, I think we would be open to it.”
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