ASU students take part in putting up their messages on t-shirts for the Clothesline Project during Domestic Violence Awareness Month at Hayden Lawn. The Clothesline Project will be a visual display of shirts with graphic messages and illustrations designed by survivors, family, friends, children, and anyone else impacted by gender-based violence. (Photo by Ryan Liu)
Long rows of T-shirts of various colors and sizes stretched across Hayden Lawn on Tuesday while students, usually busy and concerned, slowed their pace to glance at the clothesline.
Screaming and striking, messages like “Handprints do not disappear,” “It took ten years but you got out,” and “Love never hurts” left only the heartless untouched, but one woman seemed to take longer to stop by each shirt and carefully examine the words.
As her eyes filled with tears, she said she was unable to speak.
“I’m not crying because I’m sad about what happened to me,” she said, looking at the shirts. “It’s very powerful to see this way to say it to the world.”
Brittany McNurlin, family and human development junior, grew up in a home where she suffered from severe violence caused by her mentally unstable brother. She remembers how she had a scar on her head when she was no older than six after her brother hit her. She also remembers that her mother always tried to protect the brother, not her.
“He used his fists and ... was throwing tools at me, pretty much everything that he could get his hands on,” she said.
After spending a lot of time in church and immersing herself in school to overcome the trauma, McNurlin openly shares her traumatic experience to tell people they shouldn’t give up.
“(Domestic violence) is never something you need to be stuck in,” she said. “It’s never something you should be ashamed of; it’s never something that should stop you from doing what you want to do.”
However, the experience can be so traumatic that it’s hard for survivors to open up and speak about it, she said.
“It’s hard for other people to talk about domestic violence, because in general, there’s so much shame associated with being abused, and I think this project helps to take away the shame,” she said.
T-shirts with heartwarming messages that are part of the Clothesline Project are displayed at Hayden Lawn. The purpose of the project is to increase awareness and break the silence that often surrounds these experiences. (Photo by Ryan Liu)
The Clothesline Project is a visual representation of the impact domestic violence has on society. Students and faculty of the School of Social Transformation put it together to draw attention and spark a conversation about the pervasive issue of domestic violence.
Although statistics from the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence show that one out of four women and one out of seven men have been a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime, many people are unaware of the severity of the problem, history and sociology senior Evelyn Yeung said.
“The idea of being able to hang all the clothes up on the clothesline represents bringing all the private into the public and making people aware of how prevalent this issue actually is,” she said.
The T-shirts were created by domestic violence survivors, their friends, family and those who were impacted or touched by the problem to share their personal experience or provide support.
Sometimes speaking about traumatic experiences can be hard, so the project invited people who survived domestic violence to express themselves through alternative means, Yeung said.
“Through the painting you can put a lot of emotion into decorating a shirt itself,” she said. “I think not only is it an expression for the public to see, it’s also a very liberating expression for people who paint the shirt.”
Students in purple T-shirts symbolizing domestic violence awareness handed information sheets abut domestic violence and invited passersby to create their own designs on the spot.
Once a T-shirt was finished, students and volunteers immediately hung it on the clothesline already showcasing more than 500 T-shirts designed this year and 130 last year.
T-shirts with heartwarming messages that are part of the Clothesline Project are displayed at Hayden Lawn. One of the goals of the project is to destabilize stereotypes about victims and celebrate a person’s strength to survive. (Photo by Ryan Liu)
After the event each year, all the T-shirts are carefully packed and preserved until the next year to be displayed once again.
“These shirts are a physical manifestation of experiences of victims or other individuals who have been impacted by this issue, and I think it’s important to remember that not just through our memories or words,” Yeung said.
Global health junior Samantha Munoz was among the students who went to the Sojourner Center to collect T-shirts for the project from domestic violence survivors. Although October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the sensitive issue can be overlooked and overshadowed by the breast cancer awareness, she said.
“We care about saving not woman’s breasts only, but her whole body,” she said.
The Clothesline Project is an international program that started in 1990 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to address violence against women.
Professor and graduate director Alesha Durfee, who taught students involved in the project, said the ASU version focuses on domestic violence regardless of gender and aims to bring men into the discussion.
“Men before haven’t talked about victimization," she said. "We know there’s a lot of men who are victimized, and yet it’s against gender norms for men to talk about that and if they do, it’s often sexualized. If we don’t have men in the conversation we‘re not going to tackle this problem very successfully.”
Among men who decided to stop by and bring their voices to the table was Asian languages senior Carlos Penuelas, who created a T-shirt and wrote a controversial Chinese poem on it.
With this message, he said he wanted to express his feelings toward violence in general and bring out the importance of talking about emotional violence as well.
“Bruises and bones heal, but emotional strains take years to go away,” he said.
The clothesline will be on display 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. on Hayden Lawn.
Reach the reporter at kmaryaso@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @KseniaMaryasova
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