The burden of rape: Emma Sulkowicz carries that weight

EMMA Sulkowicz, a senior visual arts student at Columbia University in the US, has been lugging a 50 lb mattress around her college campus for months in a protest against the college’s failure to expel the man who raped her.

Emma was raped in her college dorm’ in her sophomore year. As part of her degree thesis, she is re-examining the rape and its emotional consequences in a piece of living art titled “Mattress Performance” or “Carry That Weight”. The protest has captured the imagination of students worldwide and last week third-level students in over 100 colleges across the US and Europe supported Emma by dragging mattresses around their campuses.

Emma says she will drag her mattress everywhere until her rapist is kicked off campus or leaves.