"Three Weeks in May": Speaking Out on Rape, a Political Art Piece

Abstract

[Editors' note: The following pages describe a unique project employing feminist art as a means of exposing and ending the rape of women. Artist Suzanne Lacy, in collaboration with other artists and performers, created a twenty-five by six-foot map of the Los Angeles area that was displayed in the downtown City Mall May 8-28, 1977. Every day, on the basis of rape statistics reported by the Los Angeles Police Department, Lacy stenciled RAPE in red letters on the map to designate sexual assaults reported the previous day. The map, viewed by countless shoppers, downtown workers, and tourists, was accompanied by a full schedule of public events--rallies, self-defense demonstrations, art performances, rape speakouts, readings, and panels. Three Weeks in May, which was sponsored by the Studio Watts Workshop and the Women's Building, was designed by Lacy and her co-workers only in part as a graphic statement of women's victimization through rape; the project also focused strongly on a map of service organizations that help rape victims, as well as the large number of public activities sponsored by the agencies. Collaboration among the artists--Lacy, Barbara Cohen, Melissa Hoffman, Leslie Labowitz-Starus, and Jill Soderholm, and among community agencies, women's groups, and information systems created an unprecedented and powerful venture coming the arts and the real world. The following speech was given by Suzanne Lacy on May 25, 1977.]