The Clothesline Project is a national art project started by women in Massachusetts as a memorial to the victims and survivors of domestic violence. The project involves designing shirts which reflect women's personal experiences with battering, rape, sexual assault, incest, child abuse, and prostitution. The shirts then are hung on a clothesline and displayed in a public location. The purpose is to create a visual memorial to the casualties and survivors of the war against women.
The Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women started our clothesline in June 1992 in Brainerd, Minnesota at a statewide conference for battered women and advocates. In October 1992, we co-sponsored a statewide hanging of shirts in Minneapolis with the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault in which over 300 shirts were hung by participants from all over the state to commemorate their own, or other women's and children's, experience as victims of the war against women and children. Included were shirts designed by the Arts Against Domestic Violence for each of the women and children who died from domestic violence in 1992. A 1993 Clothesline honoring the women and children murdered in Minnesota in that year as a result of domestic violence was premiered at Battered Women's Day at the State Capitol in March 1994. Clotheslines from 1992 to the present honoring the women and children in Minnesota killed as a result of domestic violence are available for exhibit throughout the state to raise public awareness of the prevalence and severity of women abuse and child abuse. All Clotheslines now travel to communities throughout the state of Minnesota.
The shirts on each Clothesline are designed by volunteer artists. Most of the artists did not know the woman or child they honored with a shirt but had brief information collected mainly from news accounts. Beginning in 1993, the Clothesline has included shirts designed by family members for their lost loved ones.
Viewers have had strong reactions to this exhibit:
"Thank you for this incredibly moving exhibit." "An emotional and moving tribute to women and children who have experience the ultimate degradation-- and whose memories are now so alive and special-- because of this Clothesline."
"Please make this available at other locations where more of the public will become aware. It is mind boggling!"
"Painful..."
"Intense! The art is beautiful, but the stories made me cry."
"Thank you for this memorial. It was painful to view, but it will keep alive in my mind the energy to continue to work towards prevention."
Besides bearing witness to the victims of the war against women, the Clothesline Project is also a powerful healing tool for survivors of this violence. Survivors can be invited to participate in the Clothesline Project by decorating a shirt paying tribute to their own survival. Organizers planning to exhibit the Clothesline may want to consider offering shirt-making workshops alongside the exhibit. For more information, please contact the National Clothesline Project at P.O. Box 727, East Dennis, MA, 02641. Phone: 508-385-7004.
More information on designing a shirt for the Minnesota Clothesline Project.
