Clothesline Project

What Is The Clothesline Project?

The Clothesline Project (CLP) is a movement to make sexual violence more visible. Started in 1990 on Cape Cod, the original focus was to end violence against women by creating a specific medium for survivors of sexual and domestic violence to speak out about their experiences: a decorated t-shirt. Since then, the CLP has expanded across the country with many communities creating their own version of the project.

The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s CLP includes almost 200 shirts and has been displayed hundreds of times. BARCC’s Clothesline Project includes shirts made by male survivors, significant others and designs in a variety of languages. The purpose of the project is to do the following:

  • Bear witness to survivors
  • Aid in the healing process for survivors and significant others and provide a safe place for them to express themselves
  • Educate and raise society’s awareness of the magnitude of sexual violence
  • Call for social change and provide a forum for discussing ways to facilitate this transformation
Colorful T-shirts with messages hang on clotheslines in a park, surrounded by trees, with a bench in the background.

Request the BARCC CLP

The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center has a collection of shirts for use in the Boston area. This moving tribute, which features T-shirts created by hundreds of survivors and their friends and families, can be displayed at your school, your agency, at Safety Awareness Days and health fairs, or in your community. We recommend exhibiting the Clothesline Project in conjunction with one of BARCC’s workshops. E-mail us at engagements@barcc.org to request the CLP for your community.

FAQs about BARCC’s CLP

A. BARCC’s CLP is a collection of T-shirts created by survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and rape that are hung on a line (like a traditional clothesline) and displayed in public to raise awareness about the issue of sexual violence.

A. BARCC has about 200 shirts. Most organizations display between 5 and 30 shirts. BARCC will select shirts that have messages most related to the community in which it will be displayed.

A. E-mail us at engagements@barcc.org to request the CLP for your group. Groups are responsible for transporting the shirts and poles used to display them to and from BARCC’s Cambridge office. The anchor poles and a crate of T-shirts are heavy. A car and at least two people are usually needed to pick up the display.

A. It depends on the space you have available, how long it’s going to stay up, and how many shirts you are using. The traditional setup for the CLP uses either two or three anchor poles and between 10 and 15 feet of clothesline between each pole. T-shirts are hung from the clothesline with clothespins (BARCC can provide clothespins for the CLP, but it never hurts to have a few extra). For larger displays, you may need to use longer lengths of clothesline, or more anchor poles or other anchoring options. For smaller displays, a length of clothesline between two chairs or tied off on a door handle can work. Setting up the CLP does take a degree of lifting and physical dexterity and can take a little while if only one person is putting it up.

A. Yes. BARCC loans out the CLP for up to a week at a time. You will need to have a private space where the CLP can be secured when it isn’t being shown. A locked room or storage location where the T-shirts won’t get wet, defaced, or stolen is required.

A. The shirts are not for sale. All of the shirts were created by survivors or significant others expressly for the purpose of being displayed as part of the CLP.

A. BARCC accepts donations of shirts created by survivors and significant others. E-mail us at engagements@barcc.org to find out more.

Start your own CLP

You can start a Clothesline Project for your school, community, or activist group. If you are planning on staging a kickoff event for your project, BARCC can provide community awareness speakers to talk about sexual violence and lead a variety of prevention workshops. Request a speaker or workshop.