Art installation shows why it’s not about the clothes

Published 9:12 am Wednesday, April 23, 2025

By Tommy Murphy

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“What were you wearing?” is a question that Harmony House and LaGrange College hope never leaves our mouths when directed at sexual assault victims. It’s a question that victims all too frequently hear after telling others of the horrific experience that they endured and one that should never be asked of a victim.

This week, LaGrange College has hosted an art exhibit aimed at challenging a dismissive narrative of sexual assault, titled “What were you wearing?” The exhibit organized by Harmony House is inspired by a poem of a similar name, “What I Was Wearing,” by Dr. Mary Wyandt-Heibert. Jen Brockman created the original exhibit using donated clothing based on descriptions of the clothing sexual assault survivors were wearing when they experienced sexual violence. Using the descriptions provided, outfits were recreated locally to show how little their outfit had to do with the assault.

Volunteers at Harmony House recreated the display at LaGrange College in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is in April each year.  The goal of the project is to have people rethink asking about what someone was wearing when they were sexually assaulted.   To question a sexual assault survivor about what they were wearing when they were attacked introduces the idea that the clothing they were wearing provoked the assault. The display shows it does not. 

The display shows the wide variety of the different clothing victims reported wearing when they were assaulted. The art exhibit displays t-shirts and baggy jeans, pajamas, jogging suits and other everyday wear — basically, everything that women wear— including a heartbreaking display of a child’s dress.

Ema Turner, fourth-year Political Science and Sociology student at LaGrange College, has helped with the installation the last two years.

“It’s a topic that often doesn’t get discussed a lot, because maybe people think it doesn’t happen as often as it does. It’s a topic that people are really uncomfortable discussing.” Turner said. “I think it’s a good event just to show everybody that it can happen to anybody. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”

Turner began helping with the exhibit as a servant scholar at the college. Now she works at Harmony House part-time and plans to work full-time after she graduates in May.

For more information about Harmony House, visit harmonyhousega.org

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