Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)

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Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) (2014–2015) was a work of endurance/performance art which Emma Sulkowicz conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City. Begun in September 2014, the piece involved Sulkowicz carrying a 50-pound (23 kg) mattress, of the kind that Columbia uses in its dormitories, around campus. Sulkowicz said the piece would end when a student Sulkowicz alleged raped her in her dorm room in 2012 was expelled or otherwise left the university. Sulkowicz carried the mattress until the end of the spring semester, as well as to the graduation ceremony in May 2015. Sulkowicz kept a diary throughout, amounting to 59,000 words at the end of the work, recording her experiences as well as the misunderstandings of commentators. Fellow student Paul Nungesser, whom Sulkowicz accused, was found not responsible by a university inquiry into the allegations, and police declined to pursue a criminal complaint against...

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