CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW)- T-shirts in a rainbow array of colors hung from clotheslines that wrapped halfway around the Morgan University Center at Austin Peay State University.
Each shirt silently and boldly expressed the stories of women and men who survived sexual assault, domestic and physical abuse or faced violence because of their sexual orientation.
A sign read that the language on some of the shirts came from deep pain caused by violence and violation and maybe explicit as real stories of people who survived abuse and others who didn’t were told. A key told what each color shirt represented.
The majority of the shirts told local experiences from people on APSU’s campus and in the Clarksville community, others came from the original Clothesline Project.
The Clothesline Project is a visual display that bears witness to the violence against women. Each shirt is decorated to represent a particular woman’s experience by the survivor herself or by someone who cares about her. The project started with 31 shirts in Hyannis, Massachusets in Fall 1990 and has grown to become a national and international visual display.
Jill Eichhorn, coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies Programs at APSU, said the project was first displayed at Austin Peay State University in 1996. More than two decades later, the message and therapeutic expressions on T-shirt canvases are just as impactful.
Students slowly walked by the visual project. Some stopped and read each shirt, others glanced at particular shirts and some went to the shirt creation station to make a T-shirt and add to the growing project.
“When you make a T-shirt, it’s part of the healing process,” Eichhorn said. “It’s part of not alienating yourself and letting people know your story or the story of a survivor.”
The project is presented on campus, because of the crowd it reaches, she said.
Eichhorn pointed to alarming statistics. Males who are 4-years-old and females who are 14-years old are most likely to be a victim of sexual assault. She also pointed out that 90 percent of sexual assaults on college campuses are not reported.
The Clothesline Project brings both awareness and a healing outlet to any who have been personally affected by any form of domestic violence. The project is displayed in October as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and in February as part of V-Day events.
The Clothesline Project at APSU was sponsored by the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and was also a service-learning project for students in the Women’s and Gender Studies program and introduction to LGBTQ Studies, Eichhorn said.
“This Clothesline Project is evidence of the impact domestic abuse, date violence, sexual abuse and violence based on gender and sexual orientation has on so many people,” Eichhorn said.
The statistics and stories that line the clotheslines tell hundreds of stories of victims and survivors who refuse to be silenced.