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.
Maybe she is proud of what she does and wants to put that forward. Maybe for her art is the easiest way to express her emotions and hence why she calls it that.
What is your hypothesis? Do you think she is taking advantage of something that happened to her just to advance her career? Or do you think she is actually making it up to farm popularity?
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Being an artist and a rape victim are not mutually exclusive. Being an artist does not diminish her being a victim or advocating for rape victims.
I don’t understand why you equate the word artist with just entertainment. Yes entertainment could be consequence of art but often it is not the motivating reason. For many it is a way to express their feelings, like music or like poetry.