Brightly coloured T-shirts decorated by local women, pegged to a fence, blow in the wind, capturing the attention of passing cars and pedestrians. And that is precisely the point to the colourful display at the corner of Cleveland and Pemberton avenues - to draw attention to the serious issue of violence against women.
Hosted by the Howe Sound Women's Centre, the Clothesline Project is one of many activities held across the country in honour of Prevention of Violence Against Women week, which took place April 17 to 23.
"It's perfect for Squamish - the Squamish wind loves it and all those T-shirts fluttering in the breeze attracts eyes, and if we're attracting eyes then we're attracting awareness," said Shannon Cooley Herdman, program manager for the centre. "Keeping the issue in people's minds helps create safety for the community."
Many communities in B.C. have hosted Clothesline projects and Herdman said this is the first year for Squamish. The project is a public exhibit of T-shirts decorated to represent a particular woman's experiences, said Lynnaea Le Drew, a practicum student from the University of Victoria who organized the event.
"Any woman who has experienced such violence was encouraged to design a shirt. Victims' families and friends were also invited to participate. Words and artwork were used to represent her particular experience," she said.
"It's a real mixture," Herdman said when asked about the T-shirt designs. "I think every T-shirt is designed with a different emotion involved - some want to be a positive message that we can make a difference, and others are trying to bear witness to the real pain that real women have suffered."
The colours of the T-shirts also have a meaning, explained Herdman. White represents women who died because of violence; yellow represents battered women; red, pink, and orange are for survivors of rape and sexual assault; blue and green stand for survivors of sexual abuse; purple represents women attacked because of their sexual orientation and black is for women attacked for political reasons.
According to Herdman, the aim of the Clothesline Project is "to continue the conversation that needs to happen, because as long as women and their children are being abused, there is a necessity to raise awareness and to continue prevention work."
She cited several examples of prevention programs at the women's centre, including Violence is Preventable classes, where trained counsellors go into schools to talk about healthy relationships.
The Clothesline Project was started in Massachusetts in 1990 to raise awareness, to support women in the healing process and to celebrate women's strength, said Le Drew.
"Violence against women is a major issue and one that I think is often neglected or rarely talked about," she said. "That needs to change. I think that this project will help to create awareness in our community and invite dialogue and action to address and prevent violence against women."
Passerby Lisa Zandbeek commented on the visual project.
"I actually just moved to Squamish from Alberta and already I have noticed it's a really great community and people are really supportive of each other," she said. "And this is a demonstration of that, to me. It's something that catches everybody's eye and gets people talking and gets the word out on an important issue, so that's really great."
Visit www.clotheslineproject.org for more information on the campaign.
