Protest against rapist: Columbia student carries mattress everywhere she goes

Mumbai: For 21-year-old Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia University student, carrying her dormitory room mattress everywhere she goes is not a burden. Emma’s fellow classmate raped her in the dormitory, at the beginning of her second year of college.

The visual-arts major student pledged to carry her mattress with her everywhere she went as a move to mark a protest as her alleged rapist has not been expelled.

“I was raped in my own dorm bed, and since then that space has become fraught for me,” she says in a video. “I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there with me everywhere since then.”

Emma is using the performance art project as a way to shame the Ivy League school, she told the media. "This project is a way to heal one of the most difficult things that happened to me. As I will build muscle and get stronger, hopefully I will also build emotional strength," she says.

As part of the project, Sulkowicz is not allowed to ask for help, but can accept it, if offered.