Clothesline Project

The Clothesline Project is a visual display that bears witness to the violence against victims of domestic and sexual violence and stalking. During the public display, a clothesline is hung with the shirts. Each shirt is designed to represent a particular women’s experience, by the survivor herself or by someone who cares about her.

 History

The Clothesline Project started with 31 shirts hung in Hyannis Massachusetts in the spring of 1990. Since that time, projects have begun in communities all across the country and in other countries as well.

The Cape Cod Massachusetts women’s agenda was searching for a way to communicate to the public the horrific extent of the violence perpetrated against women in the United States. The group was outraged by the statistics compiled by the Maryland Men’s Anti-Rape Recourse Center which estimated that during the 16 years of the Vietnam war, 51,000 women were murdered in the United States by their husbands or lovers, while 58,000 American soldiers perished in the war.

Later, during a visit to a moving Vietnam Memorial, the group asked itself,
“Where is our wall ?”  The answer was painful. “ Nowhere. And our war has not yet ended.”

Using the deceptively simple medium of the t-shirt survivors were able to create stunningly poignant and moving personal accounts of their feelings, their struggles, and their efforts to heal from the violence they had experienced. On October 8, 1990, the Cape Cod Women’s Agenda hung a clothesline on the town green in Hyannis. Thirty-one shirts blowing in the sea breeze proclaimed that violence against women could be found  everywhere in every stratum of society.

The Cape Cod Clothesline traveled the northeast coast, arriving in Washington, DC in March 1991 for a display in a congressional committee room, the first time members of the House of Representatives and Senate were exposed to the project.A display at the 1991 National Congress of the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Pennsylvania, spread the Clothesline to California, Washington, Texas, Virginia, and Illinois. A brief article in Ms. Magazine prompted calls from all over the country. By the end of 1991, over 40 local Clothesline Projects were being displayed around the United States.

Today, the Clothesline Project is displayed by over 500 chapters continuously throughout the nation and the world

What has this done

The Purpose of the Project

1. To bear witness to the survivors as well as the victims of the war against women.

2. To help with the healing process for the people who have lost a loved one or are survivors of this violence

3.  To educate, document, and raise society’s awareness of the extent of the problem of violence against women.

4.  To provide a nationwide network of support, encouragement and information for other communities starting their own Clothesline Project.

Why the Clothesline Project?

Few avenue’s exist for women to speak openly and honestly about the violence they have experienced. Making a shirt and hanging it on a publicly displayed clothesline becomes an integral component of a women’s healing. It is a complex process, from the initial decision to make a shirt, through the design and creation of the shirt. 

AVAP sponsors the New Hampshire Clothesline Project. The Clothesline Project displays over 3,000 T-shirts made by survivors and their families or friends. This powerful and moving exhibit graphically demonstrates the pervasive and horrific effects of domestic and sexual violence.

Held annually on the lawn of the New Hampshire State House and at Colby Sawyer College in New London, NH, the Clothesline Project is viewed by hundreds of members of the community.

Supporting the New Hampshire Clothesline Project

The Clothesline Project can use donations of the following:

- new clean unmarked t-shirts
- fabric markers
- fabric paint
- other craft materials to be used when designing t-shirts (glitter glue, ribbons,  etc.)