The Los Angeles Rape Map installed in front of LAPD Headquarters. (Raunak Khosla)

More than twelve rapes have been committed within a mile radius of USC in the past two weeks alone. Countless more have been committed throughout Los Angeles County. Even as overall crime rates are trending downwards, sexual assaults show less reduction than other major crimes. Even more troubling, evidence suggests rising rates of violence toward young women.

Rape may no longer be taboo, but then why are we forced to use the word so often?

Public ignorance, this state of being seemingly comfortable with the way things are, is the motivation behind Suzanne Lacy’s re-creation of her 1977 artwork, Three Weeks in May, a pioneering performance that was originally aimed at bringing to light experiences that were hidden from public view. The current piece, titled Three Weeks in January: End Rape, is a public artwork Lacy created in partnership with schools, art groups, rape crisis centres, social service organisations, and civic institutions. 

“Now, over thirty years later, we can no longer say that rape is unspoken, nor that services and policies do not exist,” says Lacy, “yet violence against women remains, locally and globally, with implications more pronounced than ever. This project will mobilise young women, men and an intergenerational coalition across the region to consider the next steps in a necessary agenda against sexual violence.”

A hallmark of Three Weeks in January is the Los Angeles Rape Map, installed at Deaton Auditorium, in front of the LAPD in downtown Los Angeles. Each day for three weeks, young women and men have been marking the map with the prior day’s police reports. An audio installation created using a layering process plays testimonies from victims in a narrative manner in the background.

True to Lacy’s style of combining activism with art, Three Weeks in January also includes activism, education, media, city politics and art, and participants from all of these areas. A schedule of more than 30 events, organised across LA County, began on January 12 and will continue through February 1, as part of Pacific Standard Time’s Performance and Public Art Festival.

One of the key events was a candle lighting ceremony on Jan. 27 at the site of the LA Rape Map allowing for private reflection and support to victims of rape. It was interesting and very emotional when a woman literally just came up from the street, lit a candle and started sobbing. 

Youth, politicians, activists and artists were also present to perform in a discussion on how to end rape in LA. The event involved sound, video and audience participation. In this performance, the audience was the performer, and it included talking to seated neighbours, speaking briefly in the microphone, and joining representatives from local organisations to plan local mobilisation towards a worldwide initiative - One Billion Women Rising. Members from the audience stood up and talked of their experiences, activists talked about the work they had been doing for decades. A female reporter, who was originally simply reporting, came out to everyone for the first time about getting raped. Such was the amazing power of the performance.

By the end of the performance, one could literally see the change in the audience. Everyone seemed energised and united – congratulating each other for their work, exchanging contact cards, hugging, even crying. Everyone had a positive review of the exhibit in general, with quite a few calling it “powerful” and “eye-opening”.

It was indeed eye-opening to see (and experience) how just a few moments of human love and support, communicated through the creative use of art and performance, can bring about such great changes in human emotion and behaviour. Hopefully we will see more of such motivational artwork in the future, and less rape maps.

Reach reporter Raunak Khosla here.