Resources
Academic Journal Articles
Citation: Wong and Grant. The Clothesline Project. 49. Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts,. Praxis Strand, Vol.1 No.1, Winter 2014, 49-67.
Retrieved from Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts is published by the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University. “The project described in this article utilizes art to call attention to the epidemic of violence against women on our college campuses and within our broader society. In higher education, the arts represent a hopeful space within which society can question, experiment within, and even confront itself. Understanding the ways that the arts can help students connect to culture and community enables us to use the arts to make learning exciting, meaningful, and supportive of democratic principles. Through its use of the arts, higher education institutions can offer important pedagogical spaces for social criticism and inspire collective action to stop the violence against women.”
A Few Lines on the Clothesline Project
Citation: Gilfus, Mary E. (2013). “A Few Lines on the CP.” Violence Against Women, 19(7): 940 – 942. SAGE: by subscription
The Clothesline as many colors —
Yellow or Beige
For survivors of battery
Red, Pink and Orange
For rape and sexual assault
Blue and Green
For incest and child abuse
Purple and Lavender
The colors of homophobic hate
White
in remembrance of those we’ve lost
but why is there no color for sexual-harassment?
You know when your boss squeezes your butt and you just
accidentally pour hot coffee in his lap?
I need a color for the jokes
my ex-husband made when I told him
my childhood was blue, green, red and orange
and for the time his jealousy held me hostage in a motel room
because another man was stacking me.
You know I divorced his ass.
and what is the color of poverty,
growing up cold and ragged
a girl child in rural White America
The Clothesline Project: Women’s Stories of Gender-related Violence
Citation: Ostrowski, Constance J. (1996) “The clothesline project: women’s stories of gender-related violence.” Women and Language, vol. 19, no. 1, spring 1996, pp. 37+. Gale Literature Resource Center
Retrieved from Women and Language (Vol. 19, Issue 1): “The Clothesline Project (CP) was established in the promenade of the Empire State Building’s Grand Concourse line in Albany, NY. The CP contains the printed statements of women and children who suffered from traumatic experiences. Victims of gender-related violence such as rape, incest, wife battering, emotional abuse and sexual harassment are recounted in vivid statements that are printed on the t-shirts. The project was formed to enhance public awareness about gender-related injustices….
The business man reading this shirt just stares in stunned silence, while another man shudders upon reading the story a yellow shirt tells solely – and clearly – through the picture of a large belt buckle from which radiate violent streaks of red, purple, black, and blue.
Some people can’t continue to look at the white infant t-shirts memorializing children who died from abuse, or at the blue toddler’s sleeper that says “Steve raped me. Little pals couldn’t help me.” Others stare straight ahead as they walk through the concourse, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the shirts on either side of them – shirts conveying the personal narratives of women and children who have undergone the trauma of violence and abuse.”
Narratives about violence: The words of college students
Citation: Payne, Brian K., Fogerty, Rebecca, (2007)
“Narratives about violence: The words of college students”, Volume 44, Issue 2, Pages 367-373,
ISSN 0362-3319, The Social Science Journal
Retrieved from Science Direct: “he Clothesline Project was created in 1990 to give women a creative outlet for describing their experiences with violence. Survivors of violence print messages on t-shirts which are displayed for the public during different events such as Victims’ Rights Week and Sexual Assault Awareness Week. Approximately 300 different projects are held each year in various locations across the world. In the current study, we examined the kinds of messages printed on the t-shirts by 48 participants in a Clothesline Project held on a college campus. The following five themes were uncovered: (1) messages to survivors, (2) messages to potential offenders, (3) love themes, (4) prevention themes, and (5) awareness-based themes. Implications are provided.
“I am the Woman Next Door”: The Clothesline Project as Woman Abuse Survivors’ Societal Critique
Citation: Droogsma, Rachel Anderson. (2009). “ ‘I am the Woman Next Door’: The Clothesline Project as Woman Abuse Survivors’ Societal Critique.” Communication, Culture and Critique, 2(4): 480-502.
Retrieved from Oxford University Press: “The Clothesline Project, an international grassroots public art project, offers survivors of woman abuse the opportunity to tell their stories through t-shirt art. Although the project hopes to “break the silence” surrounding gendered violence, survivors’ art testifies to more than the existence of gendered violence. A feminist standpoint analysis of survivors’ art may reveal critical and previously unseen insights into the prevalence and severity of gendered violence. This study examines the standpoints of woman abuse survivors by rhetorically analyzing words and images in Clothesline Project art. A collective critique of society’s role in woman abuse emerges. Results reveal survivors’ knowledge of the erroneous discourses surrounding woman abuse and their desire to critique and transform the cultural dynamics that create and sustain woman abuse.”
Citation: Cheek, Teresa, Rector, Kristen & Davis, Cindy (2007) The Clothesline Project, Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 27:1-2, 141-154, DOI: 10.1300/J067v27n01_09
Retrieved from Taylor & Francis open access published academic research: “Social workers participate with many different populations including perpetrators, victims, and survivors of domestic violence. It is crucial that students in the social work field are educated in the arena of domestic violence. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of intimate exposure to this population through an experiential learning project, the Clothesline Project, as an enhancement to field experience and classroom instruction for MSW students.”
“The Clothesline Project: Unpacking Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence through Sociology of Gender Course Readings’ Societal Critique
Citation: Allen, Tennille (2013) “The Clothesline Project: Unpacking Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence through Sociology of Gender Course Readings”. TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology, March. Washington DC: American Sociological Association.
Retrieved from TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology: “Given the high incidence of intimate partner violence as well as sexual abuse, assault, and violence that occurs within relationships, this assignment is designed to offer students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the impacts of such abuse and violence in the lives of survivors. This assignment also allows students to connect course…
Learning Goal(s):
• Recognize distinctions between types of sexual and intimate partner abuse and violence.
• Show creative ways that survivors of sexual and intimate partner abuse and violence can respond to and demonstrate their agency around the abuse and violence they experienced.
• Learn about the creation of grassroots campaigns to educate others on the existence, extent, impacts, and eradication of intimate partner and sexual abuse, assault, and violence.
Goal Assessment(s):
• Students distinguish between abuse and violence that takes place within families and intimate relationships as well as between psychological, emotional, physical, verbal, and sexual forms of abuse and violence.
• Students design and create a t-shirt that allows survivors of various forms of sexual and intimate partner violence to educate others about the realities of such abuse and violence and confront their abusers.
• Students view presentations of contributions to The Clothesline Project and create a similar contribution, based on their reading of a required course reading.”
Clothing their Resistance in Hegemonic Dress: The Clothesline Project’s Response to Violence Against Women
Citation: Hipple, Patricia C. (2000) “Clothing their Resistance in Hegemonic Dress: The Clothesline Project’s Response to Violence Against Women.” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 18: 163 – 177.
Retrieved from Semantic Scholar, a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature, based at the Allen Institute for AI: “Through a case study of The Clothesline Project, the author demonstrates how shirts are strategically deployed to resist gender domination, particularly gendered violence, by articulating an alternative political discourse that refutes official and popular notions about violence against women and female subordination….
The Clothesline Project uses fabric art as a medium of artistic expression and incorporates metaphors of women’s traditional domestic responsibilities to communicate women’s experiences of violence, to commemorate victims, and to bear witness to survivors. The Project follows from a tradition of women’s textile work, needlecraft, decorative arts, costume, and dress used for social commentary and political protest (see Agosin, 1994; Elsley, 1990; Pershing, 1996; Peterson, 1988; Williams, 1990; among others). By providing a means through which the testimonies of survivors and victims of battering, rape, sexual abuse, and lesbian-bashing may be heard, the Clothesline Project amplifies the voices of women who have repeatedly been silenced in discourses about gendered violence.”
Body Politics with Feeling: The Power of the Clothesline Project
Citation: Gregory, Jill & Lewton, April & Schmidt, Stephanie & Smith, Diane & Mattern, Mark (2002) “Body Politics with Feeling: The Power of the Clothesline Project,” New Political Science, 24:3, 433-448, DOI: 10.1080/0739314022000005455 24(3), 433–448.
Retrieved from Taylor & Francis Online: “The Clothesline Project uses t-shirt art to address the issue of violence against women. Others have argued that the Clothesline Project empowers women in general and female victims of violence in particular. In this article we attempt to deepen this argument, first, by tying it to the existing “faces of power” literature. Using this literature, we argue that the Clothesline Project empowers by creating a public space for political action, offering an alternative communicative medium, educating in a context of dismissal and silence, and contributing to social and cultural transformation. Second, we develop the notion of affective power and argue that it amplifies the practical power of the Clothesline Project.”
Citation: Citation: Jones, Rebecca. (2009). “The Aesthetics of Protest: Using Image to Change Discourse.” Enculturation: Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture, 6(2): 1–12.
Retrieved from Enculturation 6.2 (2009): published under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.
“‘Airing Your Dirty Laundry”‘: The Clothesline Project. “The Clothesline Project, through the language of t-shirts, asks both viewers and participants to try on a discourse about violence. Designed in 1990 by artist Rachel Carey-Harper, the project brings to life an appropriation of the trite saying, ‘airing your dirty laundry.’ Literally, the art project is a clothesline hung with t-shirts representing individuals affected by violence. Participants create a visual representation of their experience with violence by painting or drawing on a t-shirt, either on or off site, and then hanging their visual rhetoric alongside others. The one voice becomes many. As a result, the participants not only protest violence, but also benefit from sharing their experience and becoming a part of a community of protesters. The protest is quiet and reflective as participants create and viewers interpret the event in a silent dialogue that holds up a mirror to the silence cloaking domestic violence discourse. This project transfers the private discourse of domestic abuse and violence against women from inside homes to public courtyards, malls, and college campuses.”
Professors’ Experiences With Student Disclosures of Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence: How “Helping” Students Can Inform Teaching Practices
Citation: Branch, Kathryn A., Hayes, Rebecca, & Richards, Tara N. (2011). Professors’ Experiences With Student Disclosures of Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence: How “Helping” Students Can Inform Teaching Practices. Feminist Criminology, 6(1), 54-75..
Retrieved from Maryland Shared Open Access Repository (md-soar) “Others used service learning projects or community service projects as teaching tools after receiving disclosures. One professor engaged her classes through the Clothesline Project.1
She described the experience as being “a really powerful experience usually for my students and it’s something that maybe they wouldn’t do on their own.” She went on to say that the students’ experience with the Clothesline Project.”
Citation: Julier, Laura. (1994). “Private texts and social activism: Reading the Clothesline Project.” English Education, 26(4): 249 – 259. JSTOR: access only through subscription.
“Although not as widely-known as either the wall or the quilt, the Clothesline Project – a grassroots network which now extends to nine other countries – commemorates and bears witness to victims and survivors of violence against women. Shirts of varied colors are strung on a clothes- line, each created by an individual woman about her experience of – or in memory of a woman who has died from – violence against her as a woman. As with the panels of the quilt, each separately constructed shirt is a text. Some are written as letters, to the sister who committed suicide, for in- stance, or the father who raped; some scream a single word; some are not verbal. A large number speak to the perpetrator directly, or speak directly about the violent event. Some are addressed to daughters. Others speak by borrowing poems or songs, or describe a world where violence doesn’t happen.”
Narratives about Violence: The Words of College Students
Citation: Payne, Brian & Fogerty, Rebecca. (2007). Narratives about violence: The words of college students. The Social Science Journal. 44. 367-373. 10.1016/j.soscij.2007.03.005
Retrieved from Taylor & Francis Online: “The Clothesline Project was created in 1990 to give women a creative outlet for describing their experiences with violence. Survivors of violence print messages on t-shirts which are displayed for the public during different events such as Victims’ Rights Week and Sexual Assault Awareness Week. Approximately 300 different projects are held each year in various locations across the world. In the current study, we examined the kinds of messages printed on the t-shirts by 48 participants in a Clothesline Project held on a college campus. The following five themes were uncovered: (1) messages to survivors, (2) messages to potential offenders, (3) love themes, (4) prevention themes, and (5) awareness-based themes. Implications are provided.”
The Clothesline Project as Student Production: Creativity, Voice, and Action
Citation: Lempert, Lora Bex. “The Clothesline Project as Student Production: Creativity, Voice, and Action.” Teaching Sociology, vol. 31, no. 4, 2003, pp. 478–84. JSTOR: access only through subscription.
NINA LEIBMAN AND THE CLOTHESLINE PROJECT
Citation: Cassidy, Marsha. “Nina Leibman And The Clothesline Project” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 51, no. 3/4, 1999, pp. 3–4. JSTOR: access only through subscription.
“I learned of Nina Leibman’s death in the midst of reading her book Living Room Lectures. The abrupt recognition that her life had come to an unjust end – and that her two young children had been left motherless shocked and disgusted me, as it did many others… Modeled after the AIDS Quilt, the Clothesline Project memorializes women who have been victimized by violence….Nina Leibman’s shirt is white, signifying a murdered woman.
Citation: Maarhuis, Patricia L. (2016). Replies to wounds: Meaning across multiple ekphrasic interpretations of interpersonal violence and the clothesline project (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Doctoral dissertation).
Retrieved from Washington State University Research Libraries. “The purpose of this study was to describe hermeneutic phenomenological research on the Washington State University Clothesline Project (1993–2012) and ekphrasic artefacts about the experience of interpersonal violence, utilizing arts-informed research methodology (Cole & Knowles, 2008) in a Deweyan (1934/2005) theoretical framework with reference to Bakhtinian (Holquist & Liapunov, 1990) and Mouffian ideas (2008). The research project examined emergent themes, meaning making, and forms of artful expression across 4 phases and 3 points of data collection. The research methods map a linked process that combined arts-informed research (Cole & Knowles, 2008), parallaxic praxis (Sameshima & Vandermause, 2008), agonist activism (Mouffe, 2007), and transformative teaching and learning strategies (Mezirow, 2012). “
Personal Significance of Ongoing Participation in the Clothesline Project for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Citation: Mercer, Barbara K. (2003). Personal Significance of Ongoing Participation in The Clothesline Project for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). (UMI 3137045) Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN.
Retrieved from Proquest (full thesis by subscription only) “A single cohort group of seven members who participated in The Louisville Clothesline Project for a minimum 2 years served as participants in this study. For each of the women in this study, ongoing participation in The Louisville Clothesline Project was perceived as valuable in terms of personal healing and growth. One of the most empowering aspects of participation was that each woman who created a t-shirt had control over what she chose to reveal on the shirt and whether she would donate the completed shirt to be displayed. Creating a t-shirt was seen as a turning point experience in disclosure of the abuse and correct attribution of blame. Belief in the value of the shirt-making experience, social support and opportunities to participate in collective political activities that address violence against women were identified as reasons women continued to participate in The Clothesline Project.”
Personal Significance of Ongoing Participation in the Clothesline Project for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Citation: Mercer, Barbara K. (2003). Personal Significance of Ongoing Participation in The Clothesline Project for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). (UMI 3137045) Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN.
Retrieved from Proquest (full thesis by subscription only) “A single cohort group of seven members who participated in The Louisville Clothesline Project for a minimum 2 years served as participants in this study. For each of the women in this study, ongoing participation in The Louisville Clothesline Project was perceived as valuable in terms of personal healing and growth. One of the most empowering aspects of participation was that each woman who created a t-shirt had control over what she chose to reveal on the shirt and whether she would donate the completed shirt to be displayed. Creating a t-shirt was seen as a turning point experience in disclosure of the abuse and correct attribution of blame. Belief in the value of the shirt-making experience, social support and opportunities to participate in collective political activities that address violence against women were identified as reasons women continued to participate in The Clothesline Project.”
Citation: Hipple, Patrica C. (1998). Hegemonic disguise in resistance to domination: The Clothesline Project’s response to violence against women. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation). Iowa State University
“This case study of The Clothesline Project extends the theories of James C. Scott in Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts to gender domination and resistance. It demonstrates how communication encoded in a women’s folk medium comprises a hidden transcript of subordinate political discourse that refutes official and popular notions about gendered violence and female subordination. It also demonstrates how this folk medium disguises the identity of those who participate in the Clothesline Project so the transcript of their experiences can be publicly revealed with reduced risk of violence and retribution. By providing a sequestered physical and discursive space in which women are free to privately articulate their experiences of violence without censure or threat, Tie Clothesline Project nurtures and nourishes the hidden transcript. At the same time, it provides a forum for the public articulation of the political discourse contained therein.
Uncomfortable Performances: Discovering a Subversive Scenario for Rape Discourse
Citation: Ruffino, Annamaria (2007). Uncomfortable performances: Discovering a subversive scenario for rape discourse. (Master’s thesis).
“ Current trends in representations of rape show a new fascination with a rape scenario, a fascination that puts a normative slant on discourse surrounding rape… In Chapter Three, I analyze the Clothesline Project as a type of postmodern memorial. The Clothesline Project remains one of the only attempts at erecting any sort of memorial of rape, possibly due to the problems associated with representing rape. I argue that the Clothesline Project’s strategies of representation can be a transgressive attempt not only to speak out about rape, but also to refuse the spectacle of personal narrative. Chapter Four revisits the performance artifacts and connects them to Diana Taylor’s notion of the “scenario.” This research demonstrates the possibilities found within these artifacts for subverting the normative pull of rape survivor discourse..”