This weekend, the National Mall will offer visitors a monument made not of stone but of fabric: a quilt comprised of thousands of red squares spelling out the words “You Are Not Alone” and the Spanish translation, “No Estas Solx.”
It is the final unveiling of the Monument Quilt: nearly 3,000 stories of sexual violence that were written, stitched, and painted onto four-by-four-foot squares by survivors. The multi-year effort began in 2013, and parts of the collection have been displayed over the years in cities across the United States and Mexico. But this is the first and only time the Monument Quilt will be displayed in its entirety.
The project is run by FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, a Baltimore-based organization founded in 2010 that seeks to disrupt rape culture through collective action. Their past events in D.C. have included projecting ‘RAPE IS RAPE’ onto the U.S. Capitol Building and floating a poem made of giant red letters in the Reflecting Pool.
This won’t be the first time the National Mall has been quilted over. In 2012, a memorial quilt for AIDS victims was draped across the green.
Starting on Friday afternoon, visitors to the National Mall can find messages of support and calls to action threaded throughout the quilt display. “My body is my body. My body is beautiful” is painted in black across one square. “You are bold and free,” is stamped across another. Other pieces offer glimpses into the artist’s trauma: a paisley blue towel thrown against a red backdrop reads ‘Worst weekend of my life.’
Each square of the Monument Quilt is unique to the individual who created it, and FORCE hopes this process has allowed victims an outlet for healing and discussion. “Our stories literally blanket highly public, outdoor places to create and demand space to heal, and resist a singular narrative about sexual violence,” their website states.
“Healing is hard + invisible work” one square of the quilt attests, but quilt in itself makes that healing a little more visible.
The Monument Quilt will be on view from 4 p.m. Friday through 1:30 p.m. Sunday. FREE. Related events include art activities, self-defense classes, speeches, and performances. Find the full schedule here. A digital gallery of the quilt’s squares is available here.
