From April 14-16, GCSU hosted its annual Clothesline Project display on Front Campus, partnering with the Women and Allies’ Action Collective and the Stepping Stone Child Advocacy and Sexual Assault Center to bring awareness about interpersonal violence. 

The Clothesline Project invites survivors of violence, as well as those who have lost loved ones, to paint and hang T-shirts reflecting their experiences. Different shirt colors represent different types of violence, creating a visual representation of stories across the community. 

“We are here to raise awareness about people who have experienced interpersonal violence and allow people to share their stories,” said Mae Daniel, a graduate assistant at the Office of Community Engagement and Belonging. “It’s awareness-based, but also we make sure that the shirts that have been made in the past year or two stay up so that people can see their story being told.”

Daniel said that this year’s display marked a significant milestone, honoring its 1,000th shirt and representing over a thousand stories shared since the project began on campus. Daniel also noted that the display is intentionally held in April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. 

“A lot of people are already talking about it in their classes, so it’s a good way to make that connection between community and school and really make education surrounding sexual assault awareness and sexual violence and interpersonal violence a more comprehensive approach,” Daniel said. “We bring it out, start conversations between students and employees, and it’s a very powerful thing.”

The university collaborated with the Stepping Stone Child Advocacy and Sexual Assault Center, located in Dublin, which provides forensic services to victims of sexual, physical or witnessed abuse, as well as a crisis hotline.

“We like to spread awareness on sexual health and well-being and body safety, and we deal with all types of different interpersonal abuse,” said Madeline Lubniewski, a senior public health major and intern at the center. “We also have been wanting to spread awareness about Stepping Stone and the services that we offer, just because we are in a very rural area where sometimes it is hard to get the word out.”

Lubniewski said that to her, the Clothesline Project is about empowering victims and their communities through awareness and ensuring they know resources like the Stepping Stone center exist to support them and hold others accountable. 

“I just hope that people feel empowered when they walk away from this, and that they know that they’re not alone and that we are here to make people sit with the discomfort that they’ve had to experience,” Lubniewski said. 

GCSU’s Women and Allies’ Action Collective also participated in the display. Isabella Trickey, a sophomore psychology and philosophy major and the organization’s vice president, said the initiative directly aligns with the group’s mission to support women and raise awareness about sexual assault on campus.

“We are allies to women, and we want to help them, and this kind of raises a harsh awareness about the topic [of sexual assault],” Trickey said. “We work to give women a safe space to make these t-shirts, to tell their stories and to also have it as a reminder of what’s going on within our country, to try and make an effort to stop it from happening at a base level and from being allowed at a cultural level.”

Trickey said she hopes the display leads viewers to experience “healthy discomfort” and ultimately sparks meaningful conversations across campus.

“I hope people walk away with a sense of wanting to change that and to better everyone around them,” Trickey said. “I want it to start conversations, as it opens up a healthy, safe and creative way of talking about something that’s so painful for our society with so much heavy stigma.”

According to Daniel, the goal of the display is also to support survivors on campus and remind them that they are not alone in their experiences or recovery.

“They’re not alone,” Daniel said. “Sitting here telling you that 1,000 people have made shirts, it’s a very heavy thing to know. But it also feels better when the load is carried. It’s always heavy, but when you have several people carrying it, it doesn’t feel quite so tough.”

For more information on the Clothesline Project, visit https://www.theclotheslineproject.org/index.html.