Visual Exhibition: Never Asked For It Gallery

Never Asked For It Gallery is an exhibit to conveys that survivors of sexual assault never ask for the assault, regardless of what they are wearing. Survivors of sexual assault have contributed clothing that they were assaulted or harassed in. The clothing will be displayed on a mobile clothes line with some information about the project and its goal. Through this exhibit, we hope to build upon conversations happening on campus and in community about sexual violence and perceptions of deserving and undeserving victims of assault. In this exhibit, we want people to interact with the displays and to read some of the information provided about rape myths. We also wish to disrupt prevalent assumptions about who survivors of sexual violence are and as such, the clothing will be men’s, women’s, and unisex clothing to show that people of all genders are affected by sexual violence.

This project draws from the article "Women are making a powerful point about sexual violence by displaying the clothes they were assaulted in, external link."

I Never Asked For It (INAFI) is an art project first started by Blank Noise, an Indian organization advocating for the rights of survivors of sexual violence, in 2015. The art installation consists of displaying items of clothing in which survivors were subjected to sexual violence, alongside their testimonies. The purpose of the Gallery is to i) undo harmful myths around clothing acting as the cause of sexual violence because sexual violence affects all of us and has nothing to do with the clothing we choose to wear; ii) to reject victim blaming and putting the onus back onto abusers; iii) to provide survivors with the opportunity to share their stories & reclaim their experiences and their belongings on their own terms.