27-03-2025
‘It's horrifically beautiful,' The Clothesline Project, a visual testimony of violence on a community
BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) – The Women's Center at Virginia Tech and United Feminist Movement are honoring the end of Women's History Month and the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month with the Clothesline Project. The project is a visual testimony to the effects of gender-based and sexual violence on the community.
Hundreds of shirts were hanging in Squires Hall on Tech's campus on Wednesday, March 27th, all representing someone's story of violence.
(Photo Credit: Zoe Mowery/WFXR News)
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The shirts were on display side by side to show the victims standing together. Shirts are color-coded, with each color representing different traumas:
White: for victims who have died of violence.
Yellow or beige: survivors who have been battered or assaulted.
Red, pink, or orange: For those who have been sexually assaulted.
Blue or green: for survivors of incest or child sexual abuse.
Purple or lavender: for those attacked because of their sexual orientation.
Black: for those disabled because of violence.
'I think it is horrifically beautiful. Every shirt is a work of art. Every shirt tells the story of a survivor or a victim of gender based or sexual violence, and it's an awareness that people need to have about what happens in our community,' said Susan Anderson, the facilitator for the Clothesline Project on Virginia Tech's campus.
(Photo Credit: Zoe Mowery/WFXR News)
The display has been put up annually at Virginia Tech since the 1990s. The stories shown on the shirts represent the entire New River Valley, women, men, students, faculty, and community members.
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'It really raises awareness that violence happens in our community. We are no less safe or more safe than any other college community,' said Anderson, 'We want to raise that awareness that people can't have these prejudices like, 'violence only happens to poor people,' or 'people who live in that neighborhood' or 'this ethnic group' or 'those religious people.' Violence cuts across all socioeconomic lines, all kinds of lines, and it is something that we need to understand so that we can work as a community to try to lessen it.'
(Photo Credit: Zoe Mowery/WFXR News)
For the rest of this week, those who wish to create a shirt are able to from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the women's center on Washington Street. This is open to everyone in the community.
Another time to see some of the shirts collected over the decades is at the Annual Take Back the Night on April 10th at 7 p.m., an annual rally on campus against all forms of sexual violence.
For more information about domestic violence, you can visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
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