In honor of Child Abuse Awareness Month, Neighborhood House hosted The Clothesline Project, a national art exhibit. The Clothesline Project aims to raise awareness of the prevalence and severity of intimate partner violence and its ripple effects on family, friends, bystanders and our communities as a whole. It was created in 1992 by The Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women and has been featured all over the country.
The exhibit was on display at the Wellstone Center on April 24 and featured t-shirts hung on a clothesline; each representing women or children who were victims or survivors of domestic violence. The shirts were designed by volunteer artists—many of whom did not know the person they honored with a shirt, but had brief information collected mainly from news accounts. The project has since evolved to include shirts designed by family members and friends for their lost loved ones.
In addition to bearing witness to the victims of intimate partner violence, the Clothesline Project is a powerful healing tool for survivors. Survivors often participate in the Clothesline Project by decorating a shirt paying tribute to their own survival.
To find out more, visit http://clotheslineproject.info/about.html.
5/8/19