Help build a national monument to survivors of sexual violence

Remember PINK loves CONSENT? The activists behind the brilliant pank campaign to promote communicative, hot, consensual sex have been building temporary tributes to survivors of sexual violence (like the projection above) on the national mall while working to create a permanent national monument. FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is now planning its biggest intervention yet. The collective writes:

As an art and activist campaign, FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is installing temporary monuments on the national mall. For next summer we are planning our largest action to date: The Monument Quilt. The Monument Quilt will be a GIANT quilt made of survivors’ stories and covering the entire lawn on the national mall. The quilt will also be a GIANT Picnic Blanket that will invite the public to sit, eat and talk. For one weekend, our picnic will occupy the mall, like the historic installations of the AIDS quilt. The installation will create a public and highly visible cultural space in which survivors’ stories are honored and respected instead of silenced and shamed. The Monument Quilt and picnic conversations will create the public understanding that will make a permanent monument possible. Currently, we are collecting stories at themonumentproject.org. Check back this summer to see an online version of the quilt begin to grow.

On their Kickstarter page, an activist in an informational video declares that FORCE believes a national monument is important because “we want to live in a country that holds public space for survivors to heal, and where we honor the experience of people who have lived through trauma rather than shaming them.” I do, too.  You can support the collective’s efforts by making a donation or spreading the word to others who can afford to do so.