--- title: Emma Sulkowicz, Columbia University Artist, Made Video About Rape description: She says it's "not a reenactment" of her own rape but "may seem like one" canonical: https://time.com/3910621/emma-sulkowicz-mattress-columbia-rape-video/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-05T15:22:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:16.709Z og:title: Emma Sulkowicz, Columbia University Artist, Made Video About Rape og:description: She says it's "not a reenactment" of her own rape but "may seem like one" og:url: https://time.com/3910621/emma-sulkowicz-mattress-columbia-rape-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb20c5b34d39a55a2/6988532c3c1639108345838d/gettyimages-454693120.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Columbia Student Carries Mattress Around Campus Until Her Alleged Rapist Is Expelled og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Emma Sulkowicz, Columbia University Artist, Made Video About Rape twitter:description: She says it's "not a reenactment" of her own rape but "may seem like one" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb20c5b34d39a55a2/6988532c3c1639108345838d/gettyimages-454693120.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Student Who Carried Mattress in Rape Protest Unveils New Project > Sponsored content. 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It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=251e47e8-45e2-43e2-ae53-6447de7359c8&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League [Watch (HLS stream): My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/o8izpqKu.m3u8) (6:50)  _Published 2014-05-14. In April, 23 Columbia and Barnard students filed a federal Title IX complaint alleging that the University mishandled sexual assault cases_  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 5, 2015 3:22 PM UTC  Emma Sulkowicz, a senior visual arts student at Columbia University, poses with a mattress, which she says she will carry every where she goes in protest of the university's lack of action after she reported being raped during her sophomore year, on September 5, 2014 in New York City. (Andrew Burton--Getty Images) Emma Sulkowicz, a senior visual arts student at Columbia University, poses with a mattress, which she says she will carry every where she goes in protest of the university's lack of action after she reported being raped during her sophomore year, on September 5, 2014 in New York City. (Andrew Burton--Getty Images) Andrew Burton—Getty Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 5, 2015 3:22 PM UTC A Columbia University student who carried a mattress around campus to protest the administration’s refusal to expel her alleged rapist has made a follow-up project– a performance art video about her alleged rape. Emma Sulkowicz, who says she was raped by another student in 2012, has become one of the most prominent faces of campus sexual assault because of her senior thesis project — entitled _Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)_ — about what she considers to be the poor handling of her rape allegations by university authorities. In a statement accompanying the video, [which was first reported by _New York_](http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/06/emma-sulkowicz-made-a-film-addressing-rape.html), she writes that the video “not a reenactment” of her own rape, but “may seem like one.” The video project is called [_Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol_](http://www.cecinestpasunviol.com/)_,_ translates to “this is not a rape”– an allusion to surrealist Rene Magritte’s famous painting _The Treachery of Images,_ more commonly known as _Ceci N’est Pas Un Pipe,_ or “this is not a pipe.” Sulkowicz writes on the website for the project that the video is “not about one night in August, 2012.” Instead, she says, “I want to change the world, and that begins with you, seeing yourself. If you watch this video without my consent, then I hope you reflect on your reasons for objectifying me and participating in my rape.” You can watch the project, which contains graphic scenes, [here](http://www.cecinestpasunviol.com/). On Friday, there appeared to be technical difficulties loading the video. ## Transcript My name is Emma [ UNKNOWN ]. I am a junior at Columbia college. I am a visual arts major. On the first day of my sophomore year, I was raped by a fellow classmate. I didn't report at first because. It's a big emotional trauma, and I didn't feel like dealing with it at first, until I met at that time, two other women who told me the same person who had assaulted me, had assaulted them. The school found a way to dismiss each of our three cases separately. [ MUSIC ] My rapist, it still goes to my school, and still is on campus. [ MUSIC ]. This is not a single campus issue. This is not an individual issue. This is a cultural problem. We have a huge issue with rape culture on all college campuses. There was a study that was done that shows that men on college campuses who are perpetrators. Are more often than not repeat offenders. The average number of people a perpetrator will sexually assault is six, according to this study. So this isn't a random phenomenon. This isn't this happens in an alley, this happens when everyone's incredibly drunk at a party. There is a certain profile for what sexual assault looks like on a college campus. And that is why we need administrators to be open, and transparent, about that. Right now, their approach seems to be to ignore the problem, to try to deny students access to resources, to deny that that's happening at all when it fact they really should be getting in front of the issue. Our hearing took place seven months after I reported the incident. The investigator in my case didn't take down many important things such as the position I was in when he raped me. My hearing panelists weren't even trained, one woman kept asking me how it was physically possible for anal rape to happen. Why Columbia didn't find him responsible? I don't actually get to write a statement of what happened. It's all the investigator's statement that they read. There's an office called the Office of Gender Based and Sexual Misconduct. You go in there and at that time a woman was working there so I told her what had happened. She was the one who took erroneous notes, and missed really important that I said. Since her statement didn't make any sense, my case didn't make any sense. I think another reason that the school didn't find him guilty was that they, they really didn't want to treat it as a serial rape case because we, all three of us reported, and then they would say you are not allowed to mention each others' cases, we are going to treat them separately. I think that. If the hearing panel have had known that this was a serial offender, they might have believed us more maybe? They also said that there was not enough evidence to determine that it was more likely than not. That the respondent engaged in behavior that met the de, definition of sexual assault. So the charge was dismissed. [ MUSIC ] There are many reasons why a student would choose to not go to the police, and go to, you know, a campus adjudication process. Many people don't want the outcome to be the person that attacked them to go to jail. If you're a person of color. Or if you're ****, the process of going to the police can also be one that is not necessarily competent or great to deal with. Some people seek out resources from their school in order to make sure they're not living in the same dorm as a person who assaulted them, which is very different from making sure that someone goes to jail. And I also think that improving processes on campus across the board. Including you know, therapy for survivors, adequate rape crisis centers, and adequate academic interim measures, are things that are important for everyone to have the police absolutely cannot give you when you're a student. Everyday I'm afraid of leaving my room. Even seeing people who remotely look like my rapist is a scary thing for me. Last semester, I was working in the dark room in the photography department. Which is a small dark room. He asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the darkroom during my class. I started crying and hyperventilating and. As long as he's on campus with me he can continue to harass me. They're setting up for graduation for all of the seniors and all of the bleachers are coming up on campus. And, I was just thinking about the fact that. Because of what the administration did, I'm going to have to be sitting on those bleachers with my rapist and a serial rapist at that. Knowing that he's going to get the same education as me and I'll be feeling horrible on my graduation day. A lot of students think that when they go to a campus, if they see that there are zero sexual assaults reported that that's a really positive thing, that, that must mean that campus is incredibly safe, it's going to be a great place. But actually when you consider the fact that the overall rates of sexual assaults on campus are as high as one in four, if you see a campus reporting zero sexual assaults that should actually be a red flag. [ MUSIC ] I feel like it's taken over my entire, entire college experience. This happened on the first day of my sophomore year. And here I am. I just finished my last day of school for my junior year. And I'm still talking about it and still thinking about it. And I know that I'm going to look back on my entire Columbia experience and see that's how the administration has failed me. and. 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