A visual display that bears witness to sexual and intimate partner violence in our community.

The Story of the Original Clothesline Project in 1990

theclotheslineproject.org
The Clothesline Project began in 1990 when a small group of women, many of whom had experienced some form of personal violence, were moved to action by statistics shared by the Men’s Rape Prevention Project in Washington DC: 58,000 US soldiers died in the Vietnam war and during the same period of time, 51,000 women were killed in the US mostly by male partners, boyfriends and husbands. They wanted to find a unique way to take staggering, mind-numbing statistics and turn them into a provocative, emotionally powerful, educational and healing tool.

One of the women, visual artist Rachel Carey-Harper, moved by the power of the AIDS quilt, presented the concept of using shirts – hanging on a clothesline – as the vehicle for raising awareness about this issue. The idea of using a clothesline was natural. Doing the laundry was considered women’s work and in the days of close-knit neighborhoods women often exchanged information over backyard fences while hanging their clothes out to dry.

The concept was simple – let each woman tell her story in her own unique way, using words and/or artwork to decorate her shirt. Once finished, she would then hang her shirt on the clothesline. The idea was to create a healing tool for anyone who make a shirt – by hanging the shirt on the line, survivors, friends and family could give voice to often unspoken pain, hidden behind “closed doors” as “dirty laundry”; an educational tool for those who come to view the Clothesline; it becomes finally it allows those who are still suffering in silence to understand that they are not alone.

Bringing life to their vision, the first 31 Clothesline Project shirts were displayed on the village green in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in October of 1990 as part of an annual “Take Back the Night” March and Rally. Throughout the day, women came forward to create more shirts, more life stories hung on the clothesline for others to see. The line kept growing. The Clothesline Project is now a global art awareness project with local organizations curating collections in almost every state and several countries, including the collection here in Tompkins County.