EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff These T-shirts
hanging in Schoenberg Quad are part of the Clothesline Project, an
annual event held at UCLA.
By Siddarth Puri
Daily Bruin Reporter
[email protected]
If art can imitate life, then even decorated T-shirts can be
transformed to tell the story of someone’s trials and
tribulations.
In this case, hundreds of T-shirts will be hung from
clotheslines crisscrossing in Schoenberg Quad now through
Thursday.
Through UCLA’s Clothesline Project, survivors of often
hidden and unreported crimes can decorate cotton shirts with
designs and pictures using everything from colored markers to
paint. This art serves as a way for people to tell the story of
their anguish, anger, isolation and humiliation because of rape,
molestation, hate crimes or other forms of sexual or gender
violence.
“The T-shirts have a symbolic nature,” said Olivia
McManus, a first-year music theater student involved in the
Clothesline Project. “By making a shirt, survivors can
symbolically “˜air out their dirty laundry’ and release
experiences that have shaped their lives.”
Victims’ designs often include drawings of their memories
of the events and comments to the perpetrators of the crimes.
“The shirts serve two main purposes,” said Stephanie
Toby, the co-chair for the Clothesline Project vigil, “Take
Back the Night,” and a third-year American literature and
culture student. “First, the shirts help in the healing
process for survivors because they can see that they are surrounded
by such a support community. Secondly, they pictorially demonstrate
to non-survivors that this kind of violence is
prevalent.”
To create an even greater visual impact, shirts are color-coded
by type of violence. A blue or green T-shirt, for example,
signifies that the person was a survivor of incest or child sexual
abuse. The gray shirts indicate a survivor of gang rape while white
T-shirts memorialize someone who was murdered or committed suicide
as a result of sexual or gender violence.
Starting out as a feminist organization, the Clothesline Project
first used T-shirts to further symbolize women, since they have
stereotypically been associated with domestic labor such as doing
laundry and sewing clothes. The organization felt that this medium
helped capture the plight of sexual violence against women.
“By extending this metaphor to the general public, we have
in a way “˜washed our laundry in public’ for everyone to
see what people experienced and how they dealt with it,” said
Erisa Preston, head of the internal Clothesline and a third-year
psychobiology student.
With the evolution of the organization into a general group
against gender and sexual violence, the Clothesline Project now
aims to help all survivors of sexual violence with the healing
process.
The clothesline is set up with varying decorations sprinkled
across the quad. A “graveyard” section, composed of
fashioned “headstones,” commemorates victims of sexual
crimes that have died. A “reflections corner,” filled
with markers, colored pencils and paper, allows viewers to express
their feelings artistically.
For others, there is also a “reflections canvas”
where people can articulate their reactions and thoughts with
words.
“It’s a very emotional week for all of us,”
said Preston. “When you first see the shirts, you’re
sympathetic towards the people, but then you’re filled with
pride because you know how much they have suffered and endured to
come this far and tell their story.”
CLOTHESLINE: For more information, e-mail
[email protected].