Emma Sulkowicz’s mattress performance revives a long history of anti-rape art
Emma Sulkowicz’s 2014 artwork Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) has gone viral again after a woman sued Cornell University and seven men, alleging she was drugged and gang-raped while studying there in 2024. The renewed attention highlights a long tradition of artists using their work to confront sexual violence and institutional responses to it.
Sulkowicz carried a 23kg mattress around Columbia University to protest the lack of criminal charges against the student she said raped her and his continued presence on campus. She carried it to graduation, where other women helped her take it on stage; the university president turned away rather than shake her hand. The article traces this art back at least to 17th-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, and names works by Paula Rego, Yoko Ono, Frida Kahlo and Ana Mendieta, among others.
- Sulkowicz’s mattress performance has resurfaced after a new Cornell lawsuit.
- Her 23kg mattress represented the burden of being ignored.
- Artists have confronted sexual violence in their work for centuries.
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In 2014, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz created an artwork called Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), in which she carried a 23-kilogramme mattress around campus every day. She did this to protest what she said was a sexual assault by another student and the university's failure to bring criminal charges against him or remove him from campus. The act became a visible statement about how survivors were expected to bear the burden of institutional inaction.
Sulkowicz's performance was not the first time artists have confronted sexual violence through their work. The history of such art stretches back at least to the 17th century, beginning with painter Artemisia Gentileschi, and continues through contemporary artists including Paula Rego, Yoko Ono, Frida Kahlo and Ana Mendieta. These artists have used their work to address sexual violence and institutional responses to it, placing Sulkowicz's performance within a long tradition.
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The case for
Sulkowicz's mattress performance was a powerful artistic response to institutional indifference over sexual assault. When Columbia failed to adequately investigate or hold accountable the student she named, her art transformed private trauma into public testimony, forcing institutional confrontation with systemic failures in protecting students. The work exemplifies an essential artistic tradition of bearing witness to violence and demanding accountability, and its visibility successfully elevated awareness of campus sexual assault. When official channels fail survivors, artistic expression becomes a legitimate form of protest.
The case against
Whilst recognising Sulkowicz's genuine suffering and institutional failures, the mattress performance raised substantial concerns about public accusation without formal adjudication. The named student was never formally convicted or found responsible by the university at the time of the performance; public artistic identification of an accused individual risks functioning as extrajudicial judgment. Universities must investigate allegations through fair procedures protecting both complainants and the accused; treating art as substitute for institutional accountability could undermine procedural safeguards necessary for genuine justice. Serious allegations deserve rigorous institutional response through established procedures.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “The woman with the mattress: the radical, rage-fuelled history of anti-rape art”.